If you examined the prior passage in chapter fifteen with a careful eye, you observe that it took them only a few days to find the water they now enjoyed. But now it has been a month and a half—more than 40 days. There they’re in the middle of the wasteland with their impractical expectancies. “We thought we were thru with those desiccated days in the outback. And guess what? Out rushed the grouses : “The full congregation of the boys of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness” ( 16:2 ). Why were they grumbling? Again, they were casting back.

Hear their words in verse three : “Would we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of beef, when we ate bread to the full ; for you have brought us out into this badlands to kill this complete assembly with hunger” ( v. Sound like your response? If so, it is time to learn an everlasting lesson. If you target the past, it will not be long before beefs start oozing from your lips.

You’ll remember a long-ago time, washed in the misty, rosy glow of memory, when something was simpler and more content than it is today. And as you compare then to now, I guarantee it, you’ll complain. It stings to endure life’s trials, and it stings worse to copy such episodes.

Yet, without those deep hurts we have awfully tiny capacity to get godly endorse or make
forward progress toward maturity. The test of time is maybe the most rough of all. Over the long haul, God is polishing us through such tests. Reducing us to a comprehensive, open-armed trust, where we are saying, “Lord, I have come to the end of my very own flesh.

If you like me to die in this badlands, here is my life. I refuse to look back and whinge about where I find myself at this moment.” Moses had learned to attend.