Bitterness and Tall Trees - 28 Nov 2006
When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter… then Moses cried out to the Lord and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. Exodus 15: 23 & 25
Exodus 15 begins with extravagant praises when Miriam takes up her tambourine and becomes the first worship leader with a catchy little number called ‘I will sing to the Lord for He is highly exalted, the horse and his rider He has thrown into the sea’. But this turns very quickly to grumbling after the first three days traveling in a dry land. Arriving at Marah (which means Bitterness) and not being able to drink the water is the last straw.
The Israelites are often criticized for grumbling but really I am not sure what I would do if I didn’t know where the next meal or drink was coming from. Not many of us in this country know that feeling.
Very often a new venture like a new job, new house, new baby, university course or even the Christian Life seems exciting at the outset but then the reality of the situation sweeps in and demands resources that we don’t feel we possess.
It’s a good job that Moses knew what to do. He had learned to trust God for the resources he didn’t have as he faced up to Pharaoh (see Exodus chapters 5-11) and he wasn’t going to stop now.
So the escaping Israelites learned how to move from bitterness to a place of plenty where tall trees could grow. The next camp site was at Elim which means Tall Trees. Tall trees don’t grow in deserts; they need a place where there is a plentiful and constant water supply. At Elim there were twelve springs and seventy tall trees, numbers which traditionally represent completeness and appear often in the Bible. Completeness means asking God to supply our needs because in Him there is a constant supply.
What are your needs (or the needs of others around you) today? Who are the people in our own society who don’t have enough? What can we do for them?
‘And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;’ 2 Corinthians 9:8
‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world’. James1:27 | 