How we can protect ourselves against moving from praise to complaint

By Dean Collins

How long does it take to go from praising God for his deliverance to complaining and blaming God for your problems? If the children of Israel are any barometer, the answer is about three days. The Israelites finished their call-and-response praise about how God had sent the horse and rider into the sea and then continued their victory walk toward the Promised Land. Even though they were journeying through a wilderness, they had to have a new level of confidence that God could and would fulfill his promises.

But after three days of walking without finding water, things turned sour. They came upon an oasis and must have thought Praise God! only to discover that the water was undrinkable. And the people complained. If you have been a leader very long, you know people complain about all sorts of things. The range of possible complaints seems endless.

I have heard complaints about coffee, office space, compensation, dress codes, office hours, parking, and many other things. I have heard complaints about water as well but not that it was undrinkable. Going to church camp in Florida as a kid, I thought the sulfur water was undrinkable, but when I was thirsty I just held my breath and swallowed it. But apparently the water from the oasis of Marah was worse than the water in Lake Wales, Florida. It was truly undrinkable.

At church camp, they mixed the water with Kool-Aid to help us get it down. When Moses asked God for help with the water situation, God offered something better than Kool-Aid. He told Moses to throw a piece of wood into the water. It might have been a tree or a fallen limb; we really don’t know. We do know that when Moses did what God said, the water became safe to drink.

Complain or seek help?

These few verses give us a lot to think about. I assume the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night led them to this location. If so, then we can assume that God was always planning to meet the needs of his people. Like the Israelites, we often start our complaining before we ask for help or wait for the Lord to intervene. The people grumbled intensely, but Moses cried out to the Lord. Maybe our first lesson when we face opposition and difficulty is that it is better to ask God for help than to complain about our circumstances.

When Moses cried out to the Lord, he received both a solution to the water problem and a decree from God about faithfulness: “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.”

Solve it ourselves or listen for direction?

The second lesson from this passage is that we must always listen carefully to the voice of the Lord and do what is right in his sight. How many times do we go straight to complaining and next to trying to solve our problem by ourselves instead of asking God for help and listening for his instructions? I have many times done both. It never works out particularly well. I usually end up with more bitter water when I try to go it alone.

God wanted the Israelites—and he wants us—to listen to his voice, obey his word, and allow him to be the one who both leads our paths and also heals our diseases. Of course, our greatest and most deadly disease is sin. Jesus, our great physician, has already given us the path to cleanse our sins and restore our relationship with our Father in Heaven. When we surrender to God’s ways, he provides for our restoration and transformation in all areas of life. We must surrender our complaining, our stubbornness, and our pride in order for God to step in with living water. Otherwise, we will be faced with bitter water as we seek to go it alone.

Living water

It took just three days for the Israelites to move from songs of praise to grumbling and complaining. I imagine you could share my confession that I have moved from praise to complaint in far less time. Yet every time we surrender, we will see that God is ready to offer us a drink of living water. He is our source of healing and wisdom and is always present, waiting for us simply to call his name.

Lord, it is easy to travel the same road of complaining as the one our spiritual ancestors took. Forgive us when we move from praise to pouting because things are not as easy as we want them to be. We surrender ourselves completely to you. Fill us with your Spirit that we might walk in grace and truth. Lead us to paths of service today. We repent of our self-determination and chose to put all of our faith in you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Your time with God’s Word
‭‭Exodus‬ ‭15‬:‭22‬-‭27‬ ‭NLT

Photo by Jonathan Aman at Pexels.com.

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