"Lord...I don't trust You."
No one ever says those words out loud. We very rarely would even dare to say it in our hearts, but it's real. Sometimes, God is outside of our circle of trust.
I always read the Old Testament accounts of all the things the children of Israel did in the wake of their miraculous deliverance from Egypt...and I find them to be idiots.
But then I realize how much like them we all are. They had a twisted view of slavery.
In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Exodus 16:2-3
Somehow, these people think they were better off as slaves because someone set pots of meat around them. They've witnessed the plagues, they've crossed the Red Sea, and now...they're better off slaves (or dead) because they don't see readily available food in the desert.
I want it to be noted that at NO time in the scripture does it say they were hungry. It's not like they were starving, and then they grumbled. They grumbled before they were hungry, because they didn't trust God to feed them. They were freaking out before things even went wrong!
And we do the same thing...when things just start to look bad. When you realize you're in a desert, and you start calculating how long before you're out of water...do you just believe that God will make a way, or do you start to blame your salvation for your troubles?
And we do the same thing...when things just start to look bad. When you realize you're in a desert, and you start calculating how long before you're out of water...do you just believe that God will make a way, or do you start to blame your salvation for your troubles?
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| Slaves in Egypt |
The Israelites got to thinking "if only we had stayed in Egypt"...i.e. "if only we hadn't been delivered." Likewise, there are a host of things we think we'd come by easier if we were sinners. Or if we hadn't been saved. Or if we weren't trying to live our lives for God: "I'd be married by now, if I wasn't concerned with being equally yoked", "I'd have a promotion by now if I had just thrown all those people under the bus"...We don't always trust that this way of life is better.
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
Romans 6:22-23
There were the slaves in Egypt, who forgot that they were ashamed to be a slave. Who forgot that their slavery ended in death.
And there are slaves in our churches, who forgot that they were ashamed to be a slave (to sin), and who forgot that their slavery ended in death.
I think you have to first realize that you're free, before you can start to trust God. You have to first realize what you've been freed from, and in what glorious manner you've been freed (the miraculous parting of the Red Sea, and the miraculous death and resurrection of Jesus Christ).
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:34-36
...have we forgotten our place?
