Don't Have Spiritual Amnesia

Exodus 17:1-7

Many TV shows over the years have used the storyline of one character getting amnesia, forgetting many events or everything that has happened in their life.  Reading through the Scriptures of the children of Israel leaving Egypt and traveling to the Promised Land, it would look like they, too, had suffered a terrible case of amnesia.  Earlier in the Book of Exodus, the Hebrew people had whined and complained to Moses that they were hungry, that there was nothing to eat.  Now, when they arrived at Rephidim, another stop on their trek to the Promised Land, they started to complain that they had no water.  This time the people didn’t just limit themselves to whining and complaining.  Moses felt that they were preparing to stone him, they were that angry and violent over the thought that they had no water (verse 4).  Their behavior got so bad that the name of the location was changed to Massah and Meribah, which means “testing” and “contention”

What was wrong with the people’s memory?  They were forgetting how God had performed all of the miracles with the 10 plagues that were brought upon their captors, the Egyptians, but had spared them.  They were forgetting how He had parted the waters of the Red Sea, where they had walked across on dry ground, but the Egyptian army was drowned.  Then here in the wilderness they were forgetting that God was providing them with the manna every morning, and quail to eat every evening.  This was like an amnesia over all the blessings that the Lord God was providing them.  Everything He had done for them was conveniently forgotten.

Why was all of God’s earlier provisions being forgotten?  All through their wanderings in the wilderness, the people were focusing solely on their physical needs being met.  God wanted the people to focus on their need to trust in Him, believing that He loved them enough to take care of them.  All along He had been providing for them each and every day.  They witnessed each day God’s miracle of food and water for them, but their hearts were hardened with unbelief.  They didn’t want to live “one day at a time”, they wanted to see with their eyes provisions for the unlimited future.  That is not how God works, though.  He takes us one step, one day at a time.

When faced with this situation of a lack of water, Moses chose to go to the Lord in prayer.  The people, instead, chose to whine, complain, and get into an angry rage.  When we choose to do that, instead of praying, it only serves to raise our stress level, and can even bring about physical ailments.  Choosing to turn to prayer will help to calm us down in a stressful or problem situation, and will bring our focus onto God and not the problem.  Keeping a record of what God has done in our past will help us, as well.  Remembering all his many blessings will turn around that selective amnesia.  As the old-time hymn bids us to do - “Count your many blessings, name them one by one.  Count your many blessings see what God has done.”