Musings on the Daily Lectionary - Trust

In today's reading from Exodus, the Israelites head out from the Red Sea after their miraculous escape through the waters. But soon they are thirsty and, finding no drinkable water, they "complained against Moses." Moses cries out to God who gives them water. But soon they are hungry, and even though God has worked one miracle after another, they complain again. "If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

It's easy to belittle the Israelites' lack of faith. And I think some of us find their behavior even harder to understand because God is so obviously there for them. Look at all God has done for them. How can they fail to trust in God's provision?

I sometimes find myself wishing that God was more obviously present, like happened in biblical times. But I wonder if the biblical folks experienced it that way. Were they so different from me? Or were they perhaps exactly like me; confident when they sensed that God was there, but quickly imagining God was no longer with them the moment difficulty arose.

I've had my moments when God's presence was real, powerful, and life altering. I felt God calling me to leave a career and attend seminary. I've felt God calling me to refocus my work as a pastor. But then there are those times when I can't seem to find God. And I often find myself doubting those previous experiences of God. Were those signs really God, or was it all just coincidence? And I start to complain. I don't necessarily complain to God, but then neither do the Israelites. They complain to Moses and Aaron. Perhaps God didn't seem real enough at that moment even to merit a complaint. I know how they felt.

I know a lot of people who think that faith is believing what it says in the Bible, believing that God created the world, that Jesus died and rose. But I think that believing such things is child's play compared to the real work of faith. Faith is about trusting that God is at work in my life, that God is somehow moving events toward God's future and calling me to be a part of it, even when I can't seem to find God around me anywhere. In fact, I'm not sure there is faith, at least not in the sense the Apostle Paul speaks of it, without occasionally experiencing what feels like the absence of God.

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