In the winter, even on days when it's -40, I make my cows walk, sometimes up to 600 meters, for water. Everyday they walk. If they could talk, what would they say? “What's with this guy, doesn't he know how cold it is? Why not put the water by the feed, or close to the bedding and the shelter? He doesn't make sense. Sometimes he has us grazing lush green second cut alfalfa in pure comfort, and now this!”
If I could talk, I would say, “You need exercise to stay healthy. If I put the water close to the feed, your day would consist of a few steps to feed, a few steps to water, and the rest of the time laying in the bedding by the windbreak. By the end of winter you would have very poor muscle tone. Then when you needed to give birth to your calves, some of you would struggle, and some of your calves would die.”
I am their shepherd, and I make them work, and create scenarios where they are not comfortable. Yet, I am a good shepherd.
The Lord has me pondering the Exodus and the wilderness wanderings of Israel. (Read the book of Exodus) Back when I was writing about fasting, I spent time in Deuteronomy 8, and my mind has returned their often.
Talk about a people who experienced miracles. First they watch while God shows off to the Egyptians. 10 massive plagues that make it obvious that Yahweh is vastly more powerful than the false gods of Egypt. Then God puts the cloud between them and the Egyptians while He dries out a pathway through the bottom of the Red Sea so that the whole entourage can pass through the Sea without difficulty. (He didn't actually have to bring them to the Sea in the first place.) Yahweh moves the cloud, so the Egyptian cavalry can see where the Israelites went, and they race in after them. When they are all in the bottom of the Red Sea, He messes with their driving skills so they crash into each other and can't continue. Realizing that Yahweh is doing it, they work at turning their chariots around in the bottom of the Red Sea in order that they might flee back to Egypt. While doing this, God changes the wind so the walls of water return to normal and the Sea returns to what it was. The Egyptian army is drowned.
The people watch from the shore without lifting a finger.
Add to this the daily reality of a specially made cloud leading them, and the nightly reality of a pillar of fire (EX 13:21,22), and they are clearly a community blessed with a supernatural experience of God – a charismatic community.
Following immediately after all of this, they are led three days into the wilderness of Sin (geography, not behavior) and the text says, “and found no water.” I am not sure whether this means they went three days walking without water, or that they carried some water and it ran out. In any case, by the end of the third day they were desperate for water. (I can feel my dry and parched throat when I have worked hard in the hot sun for an afternoon without a water bottle.)
In the past, when I have read these stories, I have read them as glory stories. Glorious plagues leading to them plundering Egypt and being set free. Glorious deliverance from the Egyptian cavalry and army through the Red Sea. Glorious provision of water at Marah. And then quail, and manna, and victory and... They are glory stories.
But from the perspective of the Israelites they were also stories of desperation. Desperate oppression and bondage in Egypt. Desperate danger on the bank of the Red Sea. Desperate thirst, and desperate hunger. At one level it is not unreasonable to complain if you have been without water for three days, or if you are short of food, or if you are about to get killed.
Worse yet, think about Moses' parents. They and all their friends and neighbors and relatives live their lives as slaves under unreasonable task masters, complete with the order to kill their male newborns by drowning them in the Nile. Their prayers for deliverance go unanswered. Moses is 80 when he returns from exile. His parents would have died suffering, knowing only that he had been run out of the country.
I have fallen in love with Deut 8:3: “He humbled you and let you be hungry...” “that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” It's all about training (Deut 8:5). God is working to create a people of faith, who will remain faithful apart from a charismatic experience.
Look at the downside He is working to avoid. “Otherwise you may say in your heart, 'My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.'” (Deut 8:17)
What would cause that? They are going into a land flowing with milk and honey where they will farm and prosper, and have a rich and varied diet, and build nice homes, all without miraculous intervention. They will do it by the work of their own hands. (Deut 8:7-14)
So he takes them through repeated cycles of desperation and deliverance. He provides them with daily food and with clothing that does not wear out. All to cement in their hearts that it is He upon whom they depend and not their own circumstances or their own ingenuity or the work of their own hands.
The wilderness is elementary school for the Israelites. Get the basics down so that you can build on them for the rest of your lives and for the rest of your descendants lives. “Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.” (Deut. 8:5)
And then God says that He does the same for us. (Heb 12:4-11, Romans 8:28,29) Maybe He would say, “I let you get hungry,” or “I let you go bankrupt,” or, “I let your child die,” or, “I let your friends forsake you,” or, “I let you get cancer.” His end goal is not our comfort and security now. His end goal is our faithfulness and obedience now and our fellowship forever.
My cows don't always like their experience of me either.
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