FAITH CAPSULE: Let yesterday be yesterday in your journey. Do not complain.

Exodus 16:1-7

Looking back into all that happened in the past without the heart of praising and thanking God should be considered as an act of non verbal way of complaining to God. Complain is nothing but an act of rebellion. The Bible recorded that when it was time for God to destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their sin, Lot lingered and his wife and children were virtually hand held for their removal by the angels of God. (Genesis 19:16) Evidently, they were reluctant to leave and move forward. The angels that brought them out turned to them stating, “…Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.” (Genesis 19:17) The instruction for total deliverance was not to look behind. To Lot’s wife, doing the opposite was the ideal because she could not let the past be in the past. Lot’s wife looked back not to thank God but because she could not let go. Lot’s wife demonstrated a non-verbal complain as she became a pillar of salt. Just as Lot’s wife demonstrated a non-verbal complain, the children of Israel demonstrated a verbal complain. The children of Israel left Egypt and Egypt could not leave them. The Israelites continued to look back complaining, instead of looking back in thanksgiving and praising God. With every step they took forward, they turned to look back on the life they were leaving while in Egypt. The children of Israel constantly engaged in verbal complain at every ground of lack. Complaining was a major breakdown that denied them from reaching their destination. Are you looking back into the past months or years to compare? The Red Sea had not yet granted passage to the huge number of the Israelites before the complaining started. The Israelites began to complain and they also confessed negativity that eventually trapped them in the wilderness. The Bible recorded, “And the children of Israel said to them, oh that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”(Exodus 16:3) Complementing God instead of complaining to God for His goodness and mercy for all years past is an avenue to total deliverance. What are your confessions in your focusing on the past months and years? The Bible clearly warned, “You are snared by the words of your mouth; you are taken by the words of your mouth.” (Proverbs 6:2) “He who guards his mouth preserves his life, But he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction.”(Proverbs 13:3)Let yesterday be yesterday in your journey. Do not complain. Turn from complaining to praising Him with a heart of thanksgiving.

Prayer for today: Bless the name of God for His goodness and mercy.