“. . . until it comes out of your noses . . .”

Numbers tells a common tale of human greed, stupidity, and faithlessness.  The people of Israel were in the wilderness of Sinai, on their way to the Promised Land.  The LORD God was providing manna for them every day, except for Sabbath.  However, God was thoughtful enough to provide them a double portion of manna on the sixth day, right before Sabbath.

However, many of the Israelites decided that God’s faithfulness was pretty boring.  They were tired of manna.  I can hear them now: “Manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for dinner!  Fried manna, boiled manna, manna salad, manna casserole!  WE HATE THIS MANNA!”

God’s response?  He told them that he would send them plenty of meat, and that they would eat until the quail he would send would come out their noses!

Now before you (or I) go off on these ancient Israelites, we probably ought to consider our own selves.  A little boy asked his mom, “Do we really need to thank God for leftovers?!?”

Right!  Most of us have probably wondered the same thing.

A friend of mine and I were talking about work before our corporate worship service today.  He has his own business.  I asked him how business was right now.  He said something like the following:  “Almost too good,” he replied.  “But whenever I hit a time when I don’t have a lot of work on the horizon, I start getting worried and cry out to God.  Then he sends me a whole bunch of work, and reminds me of the story of the Israelites complaining about not having any meat.  God says to me, ‘Pretty soon, you’ll have work coming out of your nose!’”

Complaining is a very serious sin.  And it was not unique to ancient Israel.  Paul refers to the events of the exodus from Egypt, and warns the Corinthian believers against falling into the same horrible trap.

“NLT  1 Corinthians 10:1 I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground.

2 In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses.

3 All of them ate the same spiritual food,

4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ.

5 Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

6 These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did,

7 or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.”

8 And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.

9 Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites.

10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death.

11 These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.

12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.

13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

These Scriptures and my conversation with my friend have left me with uncomfortable questions about myself.  Am I taking God’s faithfulness for granted?  Am I regarding His faithfulness as routine or boring?  Am I complaining, when I really have nothing about which to complain?  Do I really want God to discipline me by giving me what I want until it comes out my nose?

How has your nose been here of late?