UNHOLY COMPLAINERS.

They are in every church. People who are kind of on the outside edge of the body who find things to complain about. They were in Israel during the Exodus, too. For some reason that encourages me.

In this case (Numbers 11), they complain about their hardships, and God destroys several of them with fire at Taberah. Then "the foreign rabble who were traveling with the Israelites began" to complain. (Notice how the people on the outer edge influence the central people.) Their complaint was that they "only" had manna to eat every day. Never mind that this was a daily miracle that God performed for them, that it tasted good and was flexible for making several kinds of dishes (bamanna bread, manna burgers, manna waffles, etc.). They pined for the variety of Egypt--where they had been slaves, for crying out loud!

Before I click my tongue in disbelief at their ungrateful response, I suppose I should do some inventory. When God provides miraculously day after day, do I begin to despise the apparent smallness of it all? Do I crave what I used to have when I lived in the world? "At least I was happy and had a clear conscience back then." Oh, no. It was awful! It was slavery! This is miraculous!

So God sends them quail. Lots of quail. And they get sick and puke the quail out their nostrils (that's what it says), and some of them die, and the rest are so sick they wish they would die, too.

So maybe the Bible isn't exciting enough. Maybe the straight life is too restrictive. Maybe prayer is too dull and takes too much work. Maybe. But if so, I have learned nothing from history.