“Then Moses led Israel on from the Red Sea, and they went out to the Wilderness of Shur. They journeyed for three days in the wilderness without finding water. They came to Marah, but they could not drink the water at Marah because it was bitter – that is why it was named Marah. The people grumbled to Moses, ‘What are we going to drink?'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are some stories that just stick with you. One my dad told a lot when I was growing up, and which I have now told my own boys often enough that when I start it they say, ‘We know. You and Grandpa have both told us before,’ is about one of his teachers in school. Every day the teacher would flip a coin. If it was heads, they had a pop quiz. If it was tails, they didn’t. Sometimes life throws tests our way that we don’t want or expect. How we handle those, though, matters a lot. They both test and reveal our character. Israel didn’t get very far into their journey before they experienced one of these tests. It became a story that would eventually be told a lot. Let’s talk about it.

I was just listening to a podcast the other day in which the host was talking about how important water is. The context then was the challenge of getting water to people cleaning up after Hurricane Otis hit the Pacific Coast of Mexico. First, the storm brought way too much water, causing massive flooding. Now, with all the power to the already infrastructure-poor region knocked out, they can’t get drinkable water causing compounding issues. We can go quite a long time without food – as many as 40 days or more. But without access to drinkable water, we will only last maybe four days before we die of dehydration.

After the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea and celebrated God’s miraculous delivery from the pursuing forces of Egypt, finally and completely breaking any power their former slave masters held over them, they made for their next major destination: Sinai. According to modern archaeology, this put them somewhere in eastern Saudi Arabia not too terribly far (only three days) from the Straits of Tiran which is where they probably crossed.

They began to travel into the desert. We know from how they left Egypt maybe three weeks before that they didn’t have much in the way of supplies. This was a journey of faith from the start. They had probably not brought a lot of water with them. Perhaps there had been somewhere to fill their water skins when they crossed the Red Sea, but then again, maybe not. The Sea itself was salty and not potable at all. Following the lead of the pillar of cloud that led them everywhere they went, they traveled a whole day without finding water.

Can you imagine how the kids were faring after this first day? The enthusiasm and excitement they had after the crossing faded quickly. They were thirsty. The kids were whiny. Babies were crying non-stop without much in the way of options for calming them down. They only have one way to express their extreme thirst. Then they followed the cloud a second day with the same results and things were worse. By the end of the third day, it was bad. They had crossed the line into desperation. Everything they thought got filtered through the anxious lens of “if we don’t get water tomorrow, we’re all going to die.”

Then they saw it. Water on the horizon. The change in the attitude of the people was palpable. They were going to make it after all. They quickly dispatched scouts to the distant pool only to have them ride back with the news that the water was bitter. We’re not exactly sure where this was from a geographical perspective. We’re not exactly sure what it meant either. There are some guesses, but we ultimately don’t know. Either way, the result was the same: They couldn’t drink it. They were going to die after all.

So, they complained to Moses. He was their only option. They could cry out to God, sure, but what exactly was the big pillar of cloud by day and fire by night going to do for them? Besides, Moses had always been the one to actually do the things God commanded. He was the one who held up his hands while the waters of the Red Sea parted and then went back down. He had the miracle staff. What was he going to do to fix this? “What are we going to drink?”

It’s amazing how quickly we can forget what God has done for us. Sometimes it takes us several months because nothing particularly challenging gets dropped in our laps. Other times, though, the next challenge comes in hot right on the heels of whatever good thing it was that God did for us. And as much as we perhaps didn’t intend for this to be the case, we let the challenge of whatever it is completely flood our field of vision such that it was all we could see. We couldn’t see through it. We couldn’t see around it. We couldn’t see over or under it. And the anxiety of it so transfixed our gaze that we couldn’t look away from it. When this happens, the wonder and goodness of whatever God did before is lost. And so we cry out to God, “What are we going to drink?” How are you going to fix this? Have you forgotten about us entirely? Why would you let this awful thing happen to us? Where are you?

Israel had only three days earlier crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and then watched as God utterly destroyed the powerful Egyptian army. That was an entirely miraculous event. That should have stuck with them forever. No matter what challenges they would face from then on, they should have been viewed through that lens. If God rescued us then, then of course He’ll rescue us now. What is a lack of water in the desert to a God who literally parted the sea? And that works…until you are really thirsty. That works…until your baby is dehydrated and letting you know at full volume…all day. And night. Then it’s, what sea and where’s the water?

Of course, this whole thing would eventually become an embarrassing story that would force them to sheepishly describe just how quickly they completely lost their faith in the God who had twice rescued them from Egypt with powerful signs and wonders. Throughout their history God would remind them of this episode as a way to call them back to faithfulness from whatever other path they happened to be walking instead. But in the moment, they were thirsty.

Sometimes we get thirsty. Really thirsty. And it is remarkable just how quickly we let that thirst – whatever form it happens to take – overwhelm our field of vision to the point that we can’t see anything else. Yet God’s record of great faithfulness is clear. Really clear. If He rescued Israel all those times; if He rescued the church all those times; if He rescued us all those times, then looking to Him is the most rational thing we can do in the face of being thirsty. Even really thirsty. So, like the old hymn says, let us “turn our eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth [you know, the ones that make us thirsty] will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”