| They spoke against God saying, “Can God spread a table in the desert?” When he struck the rock, water gushed out, and streams flowed abundantly. “But can he also give us food?” |
| —Psalm 78:19-20 |
When we look at the grumbling, faithless Israelites in the wilderness, we scratch our heads. They doubted whether God could supply what they needed. This group of 600, 000 men and all their families, totaling in the neighborhood of two million people, had already seen God bring them through the Red Sea. They had seen God destroy the Egyptians pursuing them. But, when it came to feeding them, they doubted.
Upon further examination, we find that even Moses, who personally witnessed God’s sovereign plan over Pharaoh, couldn’t quite believe. In Numbers 11:21, we read Moses’ response to God’s promise to provide meat:
But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’ Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?’”
That kind of ridiculous unbelief catches us off guard until we look at ourselves! Haven’t we acted in the same way? Let’s say that God has delivered us from a deadly automobile accident in a way we could not have engineered ourselves. Yet the next day, when we have no funds to take care of a large mortgage payment, we fall into anxiety and worry.
We rejoice in God’s ability to heal someone else’s broken marriage. But, when it comes to healing us from a dangerous infection, we react with a “Can God heal?” response.
In spite of our faithless reaction, our powerful God treats our doubts with patience and love. And, He graciously reveals Himself to us. As He said to Moses, in Numbers 11:23, He often says to us:
The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”
In this situation, God revealed Himself to His people, so that their faith might be strengthened. Recorded in Numbers 11:31-32:
Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It brought them down all around the camp to about three feet above the ground, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp.
We waste so much time, and spend so much energy, worrying about how God can possibly take care of our needs. If we would just remember all the answers to prayer we’ve already seen and then remind ourselves that we serve the same God who lived with Moses and the people in the wilderness. We need to say, “Can God spread a table in the desert? Yes. His arm is not too short to take care of our needs.” Praise be to God.
