9 April 2019
Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
“We are disgusted with this wretched food!” This is how the Israelites complained after they had been wandering in the desert for many years. God had been feeding them in the desert with manna, with quail and with water from a rock, but they lost patience and vented in an inappropriate manner. “We are disgusted with this wretched food” (Numbers 21:5). God heard the Israelites grumbling in this way and he did not overlook it but chose to punish his people.
Why punishment? It seems to me that this was not merely an issue of being impolite. Of course, it is impolite to complain about food when someone gives it to you as a gift, for free, especially when you would be otherwise starving to death in the desert, but there is more to it than politeness.
Try saying to yourself: “this life is not to my taste,” or even “I am disgusted by this wretched life!” Do you think that you can reject this life without rejecting the One who gives life to you? Or, short of total rejection, do you think that you can merely begrudge this life without also begrudging the one who gives life to you? I don’t think so. It is better, in my mind, to imitate the example of blessed Job, who said “we accept good things from God; should we not accept evil?” (Job 2:10).
There are many things in this world which are not to our taste. That is okay. Whatever is happening, God is in charge and not sleeping but actively working to bring about more good than we could ever imagine. The things of this world which are not to our taste are bitter medicines that help us to grow and to heal, to reach the point where we “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).