Graves of Craving

I find it so easy to go down the route of longing for stuff that I don't have, while completely forgetting and overlooking all that I do have.

I was reading Numbers 11 the other day, and it really came as a timely rebuke for me. To cut a long story short, the Israelites are living in the desert, after God has brought them up out of slavery in Egypt. He has rescued them, protected them, guided them, provided for them, and promised them great things at the end of their journey.

Rather than showing gratitude, they are grumbling and complaining. They are sick of eating manna, and want meat. In some ways, you can sympathise with them and think, well, sure, who wouldn't be sick of eating the same thing for two years? But that is not seeing things in perspective.

They are in a harsh, barren desert where there should be no provisions for them at all. But instead, God gives them water, and every morning rains bread down on the ground for them to gather. Manna apparently was like coriander seed, and tasted a bit like honey and olive oil. Not bad for something you just pick up off the ground in a desert.

But they are not seeing God's provision in any kind of appreciative light, to the the point where they are looking back fondly on Egypt, where they were living in cruel slavery!

So they start asking for meat, and this is what God has to say-

The LORD heard you when you wailed, "If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!" Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, "Why did we ever leave Egypt?"

He then calls up a wind and floods the Israelites with quail. He gives them what they have craved and grumbled for. But He is very angry with them, and brings a plague. A lot of people die, while they are eating all this meat.

The place is then named Kibroth Hattaavah, which means Graves of Craving because ' there they buried the people who had craved other food'.

This really struck me. I know it's not a simple little moral tale, and in some ways it's easy to relate to the Israelites, and feel a bit like they are hardly done by. Why is God's reaction so harsh?

I don't think it's wrong to want stuff, and I don't think God would have expected these people not to want other food. But I reckon He is angry because they show so little trust, faith, or gratitude. He has said He's going to take them to a wonderful land of milk and honey, but they are not prepared to believe that and wait patiently for the better season. They want what they want NOW, and buck and curse and grumble and complain at all God's other provision in the meantime. They treat His love and kindness as rubbish, so He gives them over to what they are demanding, letting them go to their own ruin.

The rebuke here for me is to see God's provision, and remind myself of it, and be grateful, rather than constantly looking towards what I don't yet have, or what is around the corner in the future. God's provision for me and my family has been so rich, abundant, constant and generous, that it seems ridiculous to worry about what the future holds and to think I need to go and attain it all myself. Everything I have, everything is from God.