Quick Bites: Complaining

Exodus 5:22-23 (CEV) “Moses left them and prayed, “Our Lord, why have you brought so much trouble on your people? Is that why you sent me here? Ever since you told me to speak to the king, he has caused nothing but trouble for these people. And you haven’t done a thing to help.”

I love that God includes these little private moments in the Bible. We don’t have a Bible full of perfect leaders behaving perfectly perfect while saying perfect things and walking with God in perfection. Phew, try saying that as fast as you can. God gives us stories like this. Real people trying to make sense of their walk with God. And, from time to time, whining about it.

Moses had obeyed the Lord, and instead of getting better, things had gotten worse. The people of Israel were starting to point fingers. It was getting ugly. The Bible then gives us this private glimpse into Moses’ life. He stole away by himself to pray, and he brought the heat. Why aren’t you helping us, God? Things are getting worse. What’s the deal?

Honest Sharing Time: Sometimes our walk with God looks like complaining unto the Lord with all thine might. Mine does, at least. Whining with all my heart, soul, mind, and body. And that’s ok. Moses was real with God about how he felt. He didn’t conceal his heart behind some veil of religiosity. He was honest with God, and God was ok with it. He didn’t rebuke Moses for feeling the way he felt or for being open and honest about how he felt.

In fact, God doubled down on His promise to deliver Israel from the tyranny of the Egyptians. God opened His heart in response. In God’s response, we see that He has a plan, and although things might be uncomfortable now, all is going according to plan.

Yes. God has a plan, and all is going according to plan. Yes, it’s ok to be honest with God about how you think things are going up to this point. If you’re hurting, then be hurt with Him. If you’re disappointed, be disappointed with Him. If you’re happy, be happy with Him. Bringing your heart to God is always the right thing to do.

Seeing God, or My Eyesight Was So Bad My Glasses Had To Have Glasses

40/40,000,000 or something. That’s how bad my vision was. Ok. Maybe not really 40 Million. But it was bad. I used to be really near sighted. Everything a couple inches away from my face was just a blob shape of color and movement. It was inconvenient. Mega inconvenient. Used to be.

I wore glasses for a while as a kid. Then I got contacts. They were ok; it was a definite improvement over glasses. But still, having a vision issue is…well, an issue. So I got Lasik surgery, and it was great. I wake up: I can see. It’s raining: Hey, I can still see. It’s pitch black dark: yeah, I can’t see when it’s pitch black dark, people- I mean come on. It’s Lasik surgery. It’s not like they gave me super powers. 🙂 My vision problems were resolved. Or so I thought…..

Vision problems. The sons of Jacob had vision issues as well. They couldn’t see things as they really were. Not really. In their everyday lives, they couldn’t really see the bigger story. In real life, their vision problems are probably closer to my every day reality than I’d usually care to admit.

I encourage you to go back and read the story of Jacob’s sons. Joseph and his dreams. Jacob and his favoritism. Jealousy. Pride. Murder plots. Someone working in the background unseen. Their tale is a tale of vision problems.

Genesis 42:28 (CEV) ‘…They were trembling with fear as they stared at one another and asked themselves, “What has God done to us?”‘

When I read the above verse this morning it really stuck to my heart. So often, we don’t see what’s really going on. I’ve read their story so I know it all works out in the end, and that God had a plan. But in our daily lives, we don’t see the bigger picture like that. We see like I used to see without my glasses. Blobs. Colors. Shapes. Nothing is clear. Nothing has a sharp outline on it. Even what we think we see clearly has a fuzzy outline. And so we often ask why: Why did God do this? Or why did God let this happen?

God moves and works things according to His plan and we don’t see it. We don’t see the bigger picture of what’s happening in the chaos and blobs of color and shape of our lives. We have a problem- We are just human. ‘What has God done to us?’ really isn’t that far off from how we think and how we feel. We catch just a portion of it as a blob, a shape whizzing by, a blessing appears, something bad happens. We’re human. We don’t see clearly like He does. So what are we to do?

We may not be able to see clearly in every circumstance, and in every trial and every blessing. Blobs. Colors. Shapes. If we can’t see clearly like God, maybe we can just focus on seeing God clearly in all that is happening.

I want to see God in the blobs, and colors and shapes. So I turn to His word. His word says He cares for us. His word says that He blesses us and sings over us. His word says He has made us whole. His word says we are a new creation in Him. His word says He is with us and we are not forsaken. His word says He was beaten so we could be healed. His word says He is for us and not against us. His word says that no weapon formed against us will prosper. His word says that He is our shield, our tower, our defense. His word says He made us in His image. His word says that He sent His only Son so that we may have life. His word says He loves us. His word gives us a very clear view of the God we serve. His word gives us a clear view of God and of ourselves and how God sees us.

When we see Him clearly, it gives context to all the blobs and shapes and colors whizzing past us. It allows us to change the question from ‘What has God done to us’ to ‘What is God doing through this’ and ‘What is God wanting to do through me and in me.’ You may not see the circumstances of your life clearly. Me either. That’s probably normal. But the clear image of God in His word is the image of a loving savior named Jesus who died for you to forgive you, to wipe your slate clean, and to restore you to what He created you to be.

Fine- Let’s Do This, or Work

“When God repeats Himself, that’s means it’s important, right daddy?” she asked.
“That’s right, babe,” I replied.
I may be biased, but I’m pretty sure my kids are geniuses.

When God repeats Himself, it’s usually a good sign that He’s saying something that He wants you to get, and that you’re probably not getting, yet.

Haggai 2:4 (NKJV) “…be strong, all you people of the land,’ says the Lord, ‘and work; for I am with you,’ says the Lord of hosts.”

I mean, didn’t we just read this the other day, and in a completely different book of the Bible? Well, one of us isn’t getting it. It might be me.

What to Do? Be strong. Just a side note: When God speaks, things happen. When He says, ‘Be strong,’ it is both a command and an enabling. The very act of Him saying, ‘Be strong,’ means that you can be strong and that there is strength available to you. Work. There’s a work for you to do. God isn’t finished with you. You have a work to do. Get to work.

Who Should Be Strong and Work? Us. All you people. Even you. Even me. Nobody gets an out on this one. He’s talking to us.

Where? In the land God has placed you. Maybe it’s in a barren land. Maybe it’s a fruitful well watered garden. It’s your home, your marriage, your relationships, your church, your work, your ministry. Be strong in the land God has placed you.

Why? He is with you. When God repeats Himself, that means that it’s important, and it means He wants you to get it. He is with you, and He has a work for you to do.

That’s Unexpecting, or Wait, Where’d He Go

“That’s unexpecting.”
When my kids were younger, they’d say funny things like ‘unexpecting’ instead of ‘unexpected’ and ‘keppitch’ instead of ‘ketchup’. I loved it. I still love it. My daughter still says things like ‘a-bisque’ instead of ‘abyss.’ Makes me smile every time.

Our kids have an interesting way of speaking. I guess that’s not ‘unexpecting’, since they hear my wife and me say weird and interesting things. My mother in law swears that my wife and I have our own language, so I guess it makes sense that our kids say fun things.

When my daughter was young, she had a bit of a British accent. True story. While that’s not odd in the grand scheme of things, in that some humans do in fact have British accents. It is odd in that those humans are typically some flavor of British, and we’re unexpectingly not British or ‘One of the Britishes,’ as my son would say. Our daughter would want to go ‘ootside’ and play instead of outside. Cutest thing ever. “Push me in the swing, daddy,” in her little British accent and her little blond curly hair. How do you say no to that?

My son had this Sean Connery accent thing going when he was little. Again, not unexpecting if you’re a flavor of Scottish, but, strangely enough, we are not. Imagine a little three foot tall Connery asking, “Dad, do you want to wrestle?” All we need now is some Welsh and some Northern Irish and we’d have our own little United Kingdom. I can’t really explain our weird words and weird accents other than to say that we’re unexpecting sometimes.

Matthew 8:18 (NLT) “When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he instructed his disciples to cross to the other side of the lake.”

I ran into this verse this morning. More and more I’m noticing that Jesus does and says the unexpected. Jesus is unexpecting. Here’s The Son of God, The Lamb, The Redeemer For All Mankind, and when He notices He’s picking up a large crowd, He takes off. He doesn’t even say bye. One minute He’s there. Next minute, “Wait, where’d He go?”

I mean, that’s kind of weird, right? Where I would see a big crowd as a sign of success, or see it as a sign that I’m doing the right things, Jesus saw it as a sign that it’s time to get out of town. We live in a world where fame, and followers, and a crowd are the evidence of success, so when I see Jesus purposefully sabotaging His following…it’s unexpecting.

While Jesus was fully God, He was also fully man, and man-o-man, is there danger in the crowd. It’s easy to start finding your acceptance in the crowd around you instead of finding it in God. It’s easy to start measuring your success by the size of your crowd instead of the size of your God within you. Groupthink is real, and it’s easy to start outsourcing your decisions to the crowd instead of sourcing your decisions from His will.

So, at this midweek check in, I want to encourage you to find a boat. What I mean by that is find some time to recalibrate. Find some time to get alone with God. Find some time to get refocused on Him and His will for your life. The crowd may find it unexpecting. But it’s ok to be unexpecting when you’re following the example of Christ.