Is the Lord’s Arm Too Short?

“Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month–until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it–because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” 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?” The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.” Numbers 11:18-23

The people grumble, first about being slaves in Egypt, then about being trapped by Pharaoh against the Red Sea, then having no water, then nothing to eat, and now no meat to eat. Each time God performs a miracle to answer their cries. When will they learn to trust God? Even Moses couldn’t trust that God would, or could, do what He promised in providing meat for the community. Have you faced a problem you thought was too big, too complicated, too involved even for God? What did you do? Did you do better than God? Could you do better than God? If you’re anything like me, truthfully, I’m incapable of doing anything better than God. I want to give God total control of my life, but what I want to do, I don’t do. As Paul says in Romans 7 and 8, What a wretched man I am. Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ. Therefore there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. I always remember a description of the Lord repeated many times throughout the Old Testament. The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.