Followers Grumble - Know Who it is Against!
8 And Moses said, “When the LORD gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the LORD has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the LORD.”
The above verse is taken at the end of the Red Sea crossing. If you remember the story, the nation of Israel was lead out of Egypt by Moses and Aaron. The Egyptians let them go after God killed all the first born of Egypt. But, a few days after they left, Pharaoh had a change of heart. He and his army and all his chariots pursued the nation to the Red Sea. Pharaoh thought he had them trapped. Instead, through the power of God, Moses parts the Red Sea. The nation of Israel crosses on dry ground. The Egyptians attempted to pursue them, but their wheels stuck in the mud. You see that? Dry ground vs stuck in the mud! God made the surface dry for His people but muddy for His enemies. God does that. The nation of Israel JUST saw that done. In fact, they celebrated and wrote a song about it (see chapter 15). Yet, here they are (above) grumbling about not enough food to eat. They instantly went from celebrating to complaining. This will become a cycle for them throughout their wilderness wandering. Their wandering were forty-years of grumbling. Moses and Aaron could be really frustrated by this. In fact, Moses does get frustrated. When told to speak to a rock, out of frustration of the people’s grumbling, he strikes the rock instead. He is not allowed to enter the Promise Land as a result. Their grumbling got under His skin. We have to realize, as leaders, the people will grumble. We can’t stop their grumbling. It seems to be part of follower-ship DNA. What we can do is make sure we recognize the catalyst for the grumbling. In this case, above, Moses and Aaron recognized that the people were grumbling at God, not them as the leaders. The leaders often take the brunt of the complaints. But, typically, there are other, deeper reasons for the dissatisfaction in follower’s lives. We can take it personal, or we can dig deep and find the real source and reason for their discontentment. Most of the time people complain because their expectations are not met. God wants us to be content with what we have. But, many times people are not. That causes their complaint. Since the earthly leader is the easier target, the leader gets the complaint laid at their feet. As leaders we have to be able to recognize, as Moses and Aaron did above, that their complaint is not with the leadership. It is with the Lordship, or lack of Lordship, in the person’s life. When we are in harmony with what God is doing in our lives we can follow most people. When we don’t like what God is doing in our lives, we tend to strike out and find an easy target to swing at. Earthly leaders are easy targets.
No comments:
Post a Comment