FAITH CAPSULE: Trusting God without hope to wait on Him is not complete to deliver.
Numbers 14
Engaging complaint is not acceptable before God. The Israelites made themselves a victim of complaining before God as they suffered the consequences of complaining. The Israelites were coming out of bondage of Egypt by the hand of God but repeatedly complained before God. The Israelites trust the hand of God as they engaged the journey but could not hope in God to deliver through as they repeatedly complained. Trusting God demands the need to be hopeful in God. Jerimiah 17:7 buttressed the need to trust and hope stating, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is the Lord.” Do you enter into place of worshiping God and come out of worshiping God with negative confession? Trusting God without hope to wait on Him is not complete to deliver. The Israelites entered into journey of deliverance but failed to hope but complained. The children of Israel complained directly and indirectly against God. For complaining, they were exposed to stagnation as the consequence of complaining.
It is written, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complain against Me? I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me. Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you: The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.” (Numbers 14:27-28) God responded to complaint of the Israelites. God clearly heard the Israelites as they spoke negatively to Him. The Israelites confessed death when there was a need to be conscious of the choice words as they complaint against God. The word in the Bible warned against what tongues confessed as mentioned, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverb 18:21) Are you careful with the word that comes out of your mouth? In life, allow trust and hope as your constraining means of not complaining against God. He is a God that deserves from man to hold onto Him. How long will you doubt and not truly trust and hope to make through while waiting on God? As a result of lack of trust and hope, the Israelites suffered the consequences death in the wilderness. Also, the journey of eleven days lasted for forty years.
The Israelites had the knowledge of God by virtue of miracles that brought them out of bondage but they lack knowledge to carry them through of the journey to the Promised Land.
Prayer for today: Ask God for His grace not to be a victim of complaining.