Book of Numbers - Complaining

As the title says, that was the topic of today's sermon at the church I go to. After sitting through it, I was left with a constant reminder of my father. Why is that? It's simple. Complaining is a national past time with him (unfortunately), and well he fit the sermon perfectly today.

The first set of questions that the bulletin asks are: "Why do we complain? How does it help our situation? Are there good complaints?"


My response to these questions are I think we complain because it's easier to do. I don't think it helps our situation any better, other than depending on the type of complaints, it allows one to vent and get stuff off their chest. As far as good complaints, it really depends. There is complaining just to complain, because you love to complain, and thus there are no good complaints that come from that, but there are also other complaints that are legit reasons to complain, but I wouldn't use the word good to describe it, other than necessary. Such complaints would be related to one's job, or situation regarding finances, or other things along those categories, but like I said, I don't really see how it can be described as good.

The second set of questions: "The unfaithfulness of the complaining or the lack of trust brought God's anger. What causes us to forget what God has done in our past so quickly?"

My response to this is it has to do with the matter of the moment. I think whether we mean to or not, we tend to live in the what have you done for me lately mindset, and I think this is why we tend to forget what God has done in our past so quickly.

The fourth set of questions (skipping the third): "What makes a person want to go back to their 'Egypt', rather than stick it out with God? What makes a person go back to an abusive spouse for example?"

My response in the simplest form is because it's what the person knows, and where they feel most comfortable. There is a lot of effort and hardships that can come with facing something new, and choosing to stick with something that you already know, even if it isn't for the best is easiest, so a person can choose that over than going with, or trying something new.

The last questions: "Why was manna not enough? Why do we believe we have to have more to be happy?"

My response is two fold. Don't really know why Manna wasn't enough, other than the people felt free, so they felt they should be entitled to more than Manna, and as far as why we  believe we have to have more to be happy, it's a society thing. I think society pushes that mentality on us. Whether it's a new phone, new car, new tv, new you name it, it's hard not to come away with that point of view.