The 40 year journey the nation of Israel took through the wilderness (after they left Egypt) is a Bible story that baffles me every time I read it. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how people who’ve witnessed supernatural interventions by God can turn around and complain about that very same God. I don’t get it.
You see, God didn’t gently nudge the Israelites out of Egypt, He delivered them in a miraculous way. He was their guide through the wilderness, he lead them in the form of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Num 9:15-23). They even heard His voice (Deut 4:11-12). Regardless of all this, the very fact they were out of Egypt was a testimony to the faithfulness and power of God. Yet every time they hit an obstacle or faced a setback they complained about God and questioned their deliverance. Were they so fickle to have forgotten everything God’s done for them? It’s baffling.
Then again, it’s easy to read their story in the comfort of my home and judge them. It’s easy to shake my head at the countless times they’ve been stubborn and unfaithful; after all, I’ve never wandered homeless in the wilderness. I’ve never walked long distances hauling my family and the contents of my life. Neither have I ever pitched tents, lived off the land or dealt with the constant threat of danger. I don’t know what that feels like. If faced with those circumstances how would I react? I hope I do better but I really don’t know.
Finding the Deeper Meaning
I’ve read a lot about behavior and one thing I’ve learned is that it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Something triggered it. There are reasons behind every decision we make and every emotional outburst we have. Nothing is ever as simple and clear-cut as it seems. Yet it’s so easy to judge other people’s behavior without ever exploring the trigger.
This is true even when reading the Bible. It’s easy to skim passages (especially if it’s very familiar or well known), cast judgement and never look for the trigger. The Israelites 40 year meandering through the wilderness definitely falls into that category. At first read, their journey seems like one of ingratitude, ungratefulness and a lot of complaining. But if we dig further, we find a very relatable struggle. A universal and timeless trigger that still causes much of the same behavioral responses today.
What was the trigger? This wasn’t what they were expecting. They weren’t thinking ‘long wilderness journey’ when Moses told them God had heard their cries and was going to save them. Having to go through another round of hardships doesn’t sound or feel like deliverance.
Did they even envision difficulties when they thought about their deliverance? I’m betting they didn’t. Deliverance and suffering don’t go hand in hand. Even today, hardship would not be thought of as an answer to prayer. And yet, when God calls it’s always a lot farther than we could ever imagine. If we all knew ahead of time the extent of God’s call, how many of us would even venture out? Yet this is where the Israelites found themselves, well and truly out of their comfort zone and stranded in the gap between expectations and reality.
The Widening Gap
The Israelites wandering through the wilderness was a journey through the ever widening gap between their expectation and reality. Every new obstacle or hurdle confirmed the reality of their situation and widened the gap even further. And the more it widened, the more they struggled. The more they struggled, the more they took their frustration and anger out on God, Moses and Aaron.
It got to the point that they wanted to go back to Egypt, the land where they were enslaved rather than face their reality. Sometimes when we’re standing in that gap where expectations and reality don’t match up, we tend to look back with a longing for the familiar and the known. Idealizing the past. The truth was that Egypt was the place that caused them so much misery that they cried out to God to save them (Ex 3:9). Yet in the midst of their current circumstance, they seem to have forgotten that – it’s funny how memory works.
The gap between the Israelites expectations and reality was so wide, they would rather go back to slavery rather than move forward with God, even though God’s plans for them so much better than anything they could’ve hoped to achieve in Egypt (they were going to have a land of their own with God as their king.) But in the middle of a unending wilderness journey, it’s hard to see beyond the struggle. Death was all they saw in the vast wilderness. What they didn’t realize was that the wilderness was only a place they were passing through.
What I’m Learning
A lot of times when God calls us or answers our prayers, we expect to see immediate results but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes there’s a wilderness we need to go through to get to God’s promise. Holding onto faith in this between place isn’t always easy especially when the journey has been long. It will test our limits, magnify our struggles and sometimes distort our past. That’s why it’s important to remember the wilderness is not the answer and it was never meant to be. It’s a place we are journeying through. A place of training. A place of learning, growth, strengthening faith and trusting God. It’s preparing us to receive the promise God has for us because what He has in store for us is greater than anything we could’ve hoped for or imagined.
So if you’re feeling frustrated and getting a little impatient, perhaps it’s time to look deeper. Find the trigger. And see if your expectations are lining up with reality or are you standing in the gap.