I’ve been thinking lately about attitudes. Not only about how I, or you, or we think and feel about them, but about how God thinks and feels about them. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10, that these things happened to Moses and the children of Israel as examples for us. For warning us, and instructing us, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. God is bringing His people out of bondage (Egypt) and has appointed to us a season of adversity, a wilderness wandering so to speak, to prepare us for a land flowing with milk and honey. I think that sometimes, instead of embracing an adversity that the lord has allowed into our lives, we begin to complain and the anger of the Lord is kindled. “ Back to the wilderness you go, there you will die. And I will give to your children the land that you have rejected,” says the Lord. The people became like those who complain, they chose an attitude of murmuring. We all come to a fork in the road in our own lives, and we choose a path , a path that leads to two different places. One leads back to a wilderness, the other, into a place that flows with the richness of God’s provision. I think we need to ask ourselves, “ Is my life a dry and rocky place lacking in joy and peace and the fullness of God’s provision?” One other thing, the Lord’s anger burned among them and consumed some of those who were on the outskirts of the camp. Have you ever heard anyone say, “ If that is what a Christian is, I don’t want to be one.” I believe there are people on the fringes of our lives that are watching us, and that the attitudes, which we choose, are affecting them as well. An attitude of complaining is a sin, a sin that hurts us, a sin that hurts, and angers the Lord our God, and a sin that hurts those that are on the fringes of our lives. Oh that men would give thanks to the Lord for the wonderful works he has done amongst the children of men.

Lord forgive us for an attitude of murmuring, and give us strength to choose instead an attitude of gratitude.

David Sternbeck