Numbers 14:1-4 New International Version (NIV)
The People Rebel
14 That night all the members of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. 2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
When the chorus of despair went up, everyone joined in. They believed their greatest fears were being realized. They lost perspective. They focussed on complaining and put their energy to a negative response. Getting caught up in the emotion of the moment will cause you to forget God’s character. Have you ever done this? Have you ever gotten so emotional and caught up in a moment that you lost all reasoning skills and made poor decisions. Have you ever gotten on the band wagon of complaining about a situation or problem? What if you took that energy and kept moving forward, put your eyes on God, and looked at anything and everything that is positive? Consider the larger perspective and look toward that. You have better ways to use your energy than to complain and join in with negative responses. When you stay on the positive side, you have a bright future.
