Reading through the Bible has gotten me to Exodus. Forget the fact that I do not remember all the names that were in Genesis. That trip through Genesis was fun though! Names, numbers, places and lots of history. Many names of places took me to the computer to look for “where is that?” It’s interesting that the battles still rage over exactly where something is or was. Eventually archeology will make a great discovery under the sands or earth and we will know.
What I find of even greater interest (just the way my mind works) is that so many of the places mentioned in the Bible have actually been found. And even with all those places being documented after years of “there is no such place,” people still dispute what the Bible says. For me, it’s just more questions to ask when I get to heaven. Who knows, maybe by then, it won’t make any difference.
So, here I am working my way through Exodus, and seeing the amazing display of how stupid people can be. Just think about it – we keep on cheering our sports teams on, even in the middle of a 5-10 year losing streak. But there were the Israelites, coming off an exit that scared all the people around them. Everybody heard about what the God of the Israelites did, and didn’t want anything to do with “those people.” After all, “if their God could beat the living daylights out of the mighty Egyptians, we don’t want to mess with them.”
Okay, so their natural enemies didn’t want to challenge them, but leave it to the people who got delivered to turn around and “dis” that same God. It’s biting the hand that took care of them – “did you bring us out here to get us killed.” “You forgot to bring any food Moses, and we’re hungry.”
Kinda like us – we forget too quickly what wonderful things someone has done for us and complain about the little nagging thing they forgot to do. You know, maybe they didn’t even think that they had to do that. Makes me think of Paul’s words, when he was challenge believers to “think on (remember)” the good things in Philippians 4. Too soon we forget, and maybe that is because we did not work at a constant remembrance of the good that we have or got.