Word of Encouragement (10/06/2022)
Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.” (Num. 11:11-15)
Moses felt he was caught between Israel and God—Israel complaining that they didn’t have any meat to eat and God kindled in His anger against Israel’s ungrateful complaint. Feeling the burden of leadership, he comes to God and laments about the overwhelming challenges of leading an ungrateful people.
As you read Moses’ words, you cannot help but feel for him. He felt like a nurse, having to care for hundreds of thousands of people by himself, all acting like spoiled brats. What prompted Moses to cry out to God like this? “Moses heard the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent” (Num. 11:10). Why did they weep? Both the young and the old, both little children and fully-grown adults, wailed, saying, “Give us meat, that we may eat.” Is this not comical and tragic at the same time? Why should Moses put up with these people? In his moment of weakness, he asked the LORD, “Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers?” This really got to him. So, Moses gave God the ultimatum: “If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.”
We should not be quick to criticize Moses if we have never known what it is like to lead a whole bunch of people—hundreds of thousands of them—who take us for granted, constantly complaining with a word of appreciation for all we do. Moses’ job must have been tough beyond imagination if he thought it better to die than lead the people of Israel. Yet, in some ways, Moses was doing exactly what the Israelites were doing—complaining to the LORD! It behooves us to learn what caused even someone like Moses to complain so bitterly to the LORD.
Listen to what Moses said: “Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? ...I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me.” Notice how the focus is all on himself? Did God say that he had to come up with the meat to feed the Israelites? Did He call Moses to carry the Israelites and bear the burden all alone? Of course not! When Moses kept refusing to go, did God not promise, “I will be with you” (Ex. 3:12)? When the Israelites complained about the water running out, did God tell Moses to get it somehow? Was it not God who made water gush out of a rock? When the Israelites were hungry, did Moses have to feed them? Was it not God who rained manna from heaven? Why did he think that he had to provide meat for Israel?
This is how self-pity starts—when we think we are all alone with so many cares and burdens to carry all by ourselves—when we lose sight of God, who says, “I will be with you.” Moses was talking to God, yet he forgot who God was and what He had done. We can be praying and feel exactly the way Moses did if we do not consciously remember whom we are talking to and what He has already done for us. Are you feeling burdened these days? Pray. When you pray, take time to remember who your God is.
And remember who your Savior is. Jesus did not complain about why He had to carry the burden of our sin and punishment all by Himself, even to the point of being abandoned by His heavenly Father. You may think your burden is heavy. But could it be that it is actually He, who is carrying your burden? “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.... For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:29-30).