Love it or Leave it?

In Numbers 11 we find the Israelites camped at the foot of Mt. Sinai after seeing God do some amazing things and showing them his power and authority after delivering them from the bondage of the Egyptians and parting the Red Sea so they could walk across on DRY ground.

Now something is amiss amid the Israelites. Now the Israelites are complaining. What's new? It seems they are never satisfied. They are complaining about what they don't have, not all that they do have, like food they don't have to go shopping for. Imagine 600,000 plus people at your local Wal-Mart. Never mind, it seems like that every time I go. But hopefully you know what I mean. They have also forgot that God is making them into a nation - HIS nation. He is giving them their own land - something they have never had in their history. His presence is with them wherever they go. And yet. . .they seem dissatisfied.

They, too, are in a valley. The valley of the wilderness experience. They are having to trust God. This is new to all of them. None of them, nor their forefathers and their families, had ever tasted freedom. Ever find that when we get a taste of freedom we sort of go hog wild? I keep having flashbacks to my college days - sorry. What's up with that? Anyway. . .we find the Israelites crying out to God for meat and longing for the fish and fruits and vegetables they received back in Egypt. Yeah, fish, cucumbers and melons are probably lot more tasty than manna. They would rather go back to the tastier stuff they could get in bondage of slavery than to have the blandness of their present situation, though it included freedom and God's blessings. You want to know the funny thing about their thought process? They said they could get all this for free. How soon they forgot that slavery is not free.

How about you? Do you love the "zestier" things of your past? The things that kept you in bondage. The things from which God HAS set you free? I remember when I quit drinking. There were definite times when a cold one sure looked good. It took everything within me to reach for a Gatorade or a Dr. Pepper rather than an ice-cold beer. But I knew that God had delivered me from alcohol and to go back would be a dangerous place for me - and my marriage. Even if it meant settling for something I would rather not have. I had to leave it. I had to let it go.

Are you struggling to let go of something that keeps you tied to the valley, to your past? Or are you at a place where you're willing to let it go and move forward, even if it's not as "tasty" or "zesty" as the past? Remember dissastifaction comes when our focus gets shifted from the things we do have to what we don't have . Take a moment and write down or think through what you do have - shelter, family, friends, church family, health, breath, life, salvation, God's forgiveness, finances, job, school, ministry. These are just some of the things I could think of. What about you?

So, do you love it or are you willing to leave it? Today, valley experiencers, let's focus on what we do have and thank God for those wonderful blessings!!

Blessed,
Mike