The Twisted Perspective of Grumbling

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

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The Israelites are complaining about food in the dessert! They are sick and tired of eating manna every day. They begin to look back on their time in Egypt longingly. They begin to crave the food they had there. In fact, if you look down in verses 18 to 20 you will see that these people actually said “We were better off in Egypt!” and “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” ‌‌They preferred the meat of slavery to the bread of Heaven. 

This story shows us a common strategy our Enemy uses to get us to grumble. He distorts and twists our perspective to make us see things the way he wants us to. When the Israelites complained ahout the manna, they weren’t remembering the hardships of their slavery. They weren’t remembering the feel of Egyptian whips on their backs. All they were remembering was the food…the fish and the onions and the cucumbers. In other words, they were remembering only the very, very few positive elements of their time in Egypt.

‌‌And at the same time they were forgetting all the positives of their current situation. They were forgetting that they were getting Manna for free. It was just sitting on the ground waiting for them each morning. They were forgetting that the manna tasted pleasant. It tasted like something made with olive oil. ‌And ‌they were forgetting that God was taking them to a Promised Land flowing with milk and honey, where they’d get to eat all those delicacies again and more to boot. In other words, they were forgetting all the many positives of their current situation, and were thinking only of this one negative.

The Enemy will try to do the same to you. He has done it to me many times. He will trick you into looking at your life from His twisted perspective. He will make you forget all the positives and focus only on the negatives. Don’t let him do that to you or you’ll start to grumble against God. Make sure you are seeing the whole picture. Ask God to help you to get your eyes off the negatives and help you see all the good things He is doing and has done for you.

One last thing, all of this was possible only because the Israelites had grown tired of God’s blessings and had begun to take them for granted. There’s an old saying, “familiarity breeds contempt.” Every single day, the Israelites were witnessing a miracle. Every day God was performing a miracle to feed them in the desert, and they grew tired of it. They lost the awe of what God was doing for them. They lost the gratitude they should have felt for God’s provision. And they began to hate what they should have been thankful for.

‌‌Don’t take the Lord’s daily blessings in your life for granted. Don’t let the Enemy cause you to hate what you should be thankful for.