Exodus 17:1–7:

“The whole community of the Israelites traveled on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the Lord’s instruction, and they pitched camp in Rephidim. Now there was no water for the people to drink. So the people contended with Moses, and they said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you contend with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ The people were very thirsty there for water, and they murmured against Moses and said, ‘Why in the world did you bring us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?’

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What will I do with this people? A little more and they will stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go over before the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand your staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing before you there on the rock in Horeb, and you will strike the rock, and water will come out of it so that the people may drink.’ And Moses did so in plain view of the elders of Israel. He called the name of the place Massah and Meribah because of the contending of the Israelites and because of their testing the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’”

Put yourself in the shoes of these Israelites just for one minute. We cannot live without water. That is a basic thing.

A lot of the time when you walk with God, He tells you, “Go this step,” and you do not have a plan. After some time, the plan starts to unfold, even though you started without a plan.

If you go to the letters of Paul, the issue is their grumbling (1 Corinthians 10:9–11). There is no doubting the fact that this was a difficult situation—a situation where they were thirsty, a situation where they were hungry. There is no doubting that fact. The problem was the grumbling. The problem was the complaining. They were complaining against Moses, but you see that God later says that these people are complaining against Him (Exodus 16:7–8).

And Paul will later write that this happened to them for our learning, so that we will not grumble as they did (1 Corinthians 10:11). Every complaint—this is my conclusion—every complaint about the situation of your life is a complaint against God, because it is God who made it happen like that.

Who made it happen that these people were thirsty in the wilderness? It was God. It was “God’s fault,” in quotes. Every reality of our life is because God allowed it—God made it so like that. Therefore, every grumbling is a grumbling against God. Every grumbling is a grumbling against God. Every grumbling, every complaint—particularly now about the situation of your life.

Because who made you to be short or tall? Who made you to be like that? So your complaining about being short is a grumbling against God. Your complaining about being tall is a grumbling against God—I don’t know who is complaining about being tall, anyway—but some people will complain about being short. Complaining about how your parents treat you is a grumbling against God.

I am saying you can feel bad about your experience, but grumbling and complaining now is against God.

And the challenge is to not be like these people, because it just seems logical and reasonable: “We are thirsty. Look at our little children.” But that is where you have to caution yourself and embrace repentance. Realize every complaint is a complaint against God, because it is God that made it to be like that. It is God that brought them out. He forced it so that whatever was inside of them would come out.

So in a way, situations and circumstances are forcing out what is inside of us—the complaint, the grumbling, the murmuring against people. Who brought them from Egypt? It was God. So even though it seems that the complaint is against Moses, ultimately the complaint is against God.

And you see the repeated grumbling in the life of these people. It is like a pattern. It became: this is the norm, this is how we do things, this is how we react to things. When you look at it from the natural standpoint, it seems logical, because the flesh wants to complain and point at somebody as being at fault.

Adam pointed at Eve as being the one who was at fault: “The woman You gave me…” (Genesis 3:12). So ultimately you are not really grumbling against that person; you are grumbling against God.

This is my conclusion: every complaint, every grumbling, is a grumbling against God, because it is God that made it to be like that.

I hope you understand.

God bless you. See you later.