Numbers 11:18-23 – Don’t limit God by our small thinking.

While Moses received the assistance he needed, the grumblers had exactly the meat they craved for, but not without incurring God’s displeasure. Numbers 11:18 says that God instructed Moses to tell the people to ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept in the  ears of the Lord.” What Moses meant to say was that God had heard their murmuring and discontent. He, however, warned them that alongside the provision of meat, God was going to judge them. They would soon be eating meat till they would loathe it. Moses said that God would provide them with meat to eat not only for one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but for a whole month. They would be eating meat until it would come out of their noses and make them feel nauseated. Why?  Because they had rejected the Lord who was among them. Their behavior reflected their unbelief and rejection of God. They would rather be in bondage than on the freedom road where God had set them. After the massive effort God took to free them from bondage, they wished they were back in Egypt. How foolish could they be?

One lesson for us to learn here is this: prayer and murmuring both need words as the media of expression. The former shows a spirit of reliance, the latter shows a spirit of defiance and discontent. Won’t it be more profitable to pray than to gripe and murmur? God will never mind us making our request known to Him with thanksgiving. But God will be displeased with murmuring and grumbling and will have to deal with it to enable us to trust Him in the future. 

Moses’ quick calculation told him that including himself there were six hundred thousand people on foot. What about those not on foot? He thought to himself, “Could God provide meat for so many people for a whole month?” So brazenly he asked God, saying, “The people, among whom I am included, are six hundred thousand on foot! Yet You have said, ‘I will give them meat, so that they may eat for a whole month?” He further wondered where God was going to find so many animals to slaughter to provide the meat or how many fish could He catch from the sea to provide for them. This would require a miracle of huge proportion. But God is certainly able. Hear what Paul said about God in Ephesians 3:20, “… He is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”

One question many of us probably have would be this: why didn’t God deal with Moses for doubting Him?  Why was God so gracious to Moses despite his expression of doubt?  There can be no adequate answer to this question. Enough to say that God knows best. He probably was looking at Moses’ heart and knew where he was coming from. This meekest man on earth was most probably expressing his concern for God’s reputation. He could not conceive what God could do because of his small thinking. Like Moses, we often limit God by the smallness of our thinking. Let us never forget that He is the Creator God. Everything came into being when He spoke the word. He has the power to do practically anything. We must not limit Him by our small thinking. We must not focus on our problem but on the bigness of our God. He can do above all that we can ever think or imagine. Trust Him absolutely!