A Walk Down Memory Lane (Numbers 10-11)

The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat!  We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.  But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” (Numbers 11:4-6)

Oh, Israel.  How quickly you forget from whence you came.  You lived in slavery and cried to the Lord to be rescued.  You worked like dogs in a land with no freedom.  Your children were ripped from your wombs and thrown into the Nile River.  Yet you suffer from short term memory loss and believe that you were better off before the Lord rescued you and began the process of taking you to the Promised Land.

It’s easy to point our fingers at Israel and to decry their foolishness.  But let’s be honest with ourselves for a moment: we can be guilty of the same thing.  Whenever life gets hard, it’s easy to think of times in the past where painful memories have faded and we’re left simply with rosy retrospect.  Such is not a fair view of reality, though, is it?

A quick walk down Memory Lane will remind us that the grass wasn’t necessarily greener in the past.  But even if it was greener, who’s to say that where God is leading us isn’t an altogether better place in the end.

The Israelites lost sight of the journey God was taking them on, and many missed out on the blessings of that life as a result.

When life gets tough, don’t believe Satan’s lies that things were better before and that they’ll never be good again.  That’s not to say that, in this life, we’ll always have happy endings.  However, we cling to the hope of joy that comes with eternity.  Here in the present, however, we can trust that our heavenly Father has things exactly as He wants them.

Father, I find myself so quick to think back on the “good old days” as if they were somehow better than what I’m going through in the here and now.  I don’t want to be guilty of mistaking my happiness for blessing.  Truthfully, I am incredibly blessed in the present.  Give me a positive attitude with whatever circumstances I face, and use the present to shape me into the person You want me to be.