"I never thanked Him..."

Betsie’s response to Corrie’s statement about Jesus dying naked on the cross, cuts me to the core. How quickly she responded with thoughts of thankfulness in such an intensely evil place! Would I have done so in her place?

How often do I remember to thank the Lord in the normal course of a normal day for the very fact that it IS normal? Not often enough, I’m afraid.

And yet, in EVERYTHING we are instructed to give thanks. In wealth or poverty, in health or sickness, in good times or in bad times (Does it sound a little like marriage vows? And who would be the bridegroom?) If I forget to give thanks while in the good times, how will I possibly remember to do so in the bad times, as Betsie did?

It reminds me of the Israelites in the desert and their lack of thankfulness…I’m afraid I might have been one of them had I been alive then. Remember how they had been delivered from the Pharaoh’s hand where they were slaves, making mud bricks and hauling them all day long to build the cities of the Pharaoh. God allowed them to become slaves because of their thanklessness to begin with, and after 400 years of it, they had finally had enough and were crying out to God for deliverance! And so He gave them Moses, and delivered them. He brought them across the miraculously dried up Red Sea, He guided them with a cloud by day and fire by night, He set up His tabernacle in their midst (the mighty and holy God of Heaven living in a tent even as they did...a foreshadow of Jesus living in human form for us?), He fed them with miraculous manna from heaven. Yet, with all this, and even having seen the mighty miracles of God in their deliverance from Egypt, they soon began to grumble and complain, and of all things, to even wish they were back in captivity:

“…Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic: but now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.” (Numbers 11:4-6 KJV)

…besides this manna? The miraculous manna? Did they not know they were complaining against GOD? Do WE not know that when we complain it is against GOD that we also are complaining as He allows everything that is in our lives to be there for His purposes? Sometimes we complain about the very miracle that He has placed in our lives to provide for us, but we’re so busy complaining we don’t see it as a miracle or a provision from God…we’re just bored with it and we want something new and fresh and different. Just like the Israelites. And God heard them, just as He always hears us.

And so they got quail. Boy, did they get quail!

A friend recently pointed out that the quail were two to three feet deep and a day’s walk in any direction…that’s how many quail suddenly surrounded their camp to provide them with meat. Each family gathered 10 homers (approximately 60 bushel baskets) worth! That’s a lot of quail!

But then they had done a lot of complaining! And in His wrath, God gave them all that they asked for…AND MORE! He said: “I will give you meat until it comes out your nostrils!” (Numbers 11:18-23 KJV) The image I get is of being so stuffed with quail that you would vomit it up and it would come out through your nose! Granted, not a pleasant image, but I’m pretty sure that if God said that’s how it would be, then that’s how it was!

But here’s the best part…even though they complained, non-stop it seems [see Numbers 20, and Numbers 21], God still loved them and longed for them to return His love, and gave them chance after chance to change. We would seldom give someone a second chance or even a third chance if they were so horribly ungrateful. Yet, that’s not showing the love of God, for His love is never-ending.

He always hoped they would turn back to Him in love and thanksgiving, but many of them never did. Not one of those who complained were allowed to enter into the promised land.

What does that tell us?

[This blog is an ongoing study of the lives and the faith of Christian women who have experienced and demonstrated victorious living through Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The current study is about Corrie ten Boom which began on September 21, 2009.]