Meat for the Hungry

openclipart.org We just returned from a quick, two-day trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I say quick, but in reality, it was an eight-hour drive each way. We were there for my granddaughter’s ballet audition, yet this would not have been possible without technological advancements that allow automobiles to travel at speeds of 70 miles per hour and more. Cars with all the creature comforts like soft seats, heat or AC, music, GPS direction, etc., make the eight hours quite enjoyable.   Returning home, I had time to study for my weekly Bible study, and the lesson book mentioned a Deuteronomy 8 cross-reference. Reading the chapter, I witnessed God using Moses as His mouthpiece to speak to the Israelites at the end of their forty-year wilderness journey—right before they entered the Promised Land.   Reading about this dry, barren wilderness with no water or food for miles got me thinking. How amazing it is to travel 500 miles in eight hours, whereas it would have taken the ...

Israel’s supplies had dwindled. The desolation of the Wilderness of Sin was almost unbearable. In every direction, edible plants were sparse and any wild game to feed this great multitude had departed with the thunder of a million feet. Famished, Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron saying, “ Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! “For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Talk about unfair. Did Moses twist their arms and force them to leave Egypt? Slavery is a brutal way of life. God heard Israel’s cries for deliverance and He rescued them. Now extreme hunger distorted their memory. The “pots of meat and …bread to the full…”  eaten as slaves, were not as good as they remembered and in blaming Moses and Aaron, Israel's complaints were really against God.