“AND THEY LACKED NOTHING!”

 Nehemiah 9:16-21                                (ESV)

“16 "But they (Children of Israel) and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey YOUR commandments.

17 They refused to obey and were not mindful of the wonders that YOU performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But YOU are a GOD ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.

18 Even when they had made for themselves a golden calf and said, 'This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,' and had committed great blasphemies,

19 YOU in YOUR great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The PILLAR OF CLOUD to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the PILLAR OF FIRE by night to light for them THE WAY BY WHICH THEY SHOULD GO.

20 YOU gave YOUR good SPIRIT to instruct them and did not withhold YOUR manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst.

21 Forty years YOU sustained them in the wilderness, “AND THEY LACKED NOTHING”. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.”  

It can be deceptively easy to allow our focus to be switched from what we KNOW it should be on to that which is easier, sometimes less challenging, especially when our confidence is in ourselves and not in WHO is residing within us!  The Children of Israel had been released from captivity after 400+ years of slavery to the Egyptians with a tremendous amount of wealth, watched the Egyptians get swallowed by the Red Sea, and “for forty years YOU (GOD) sustained them in the wilderness, “AND THEY LACKED NOTHING”. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.”

Even after the MIRACLES that they had personally experienced, the Children of Israel “stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt”!  Why would they forget where they had come from and their MIRACULOUS history?  Why would ALMIGHTY GOD bring them this far to abandon them and let them return to slavery?  Moses pleaded for them before GOD reminding GOD that “YOU are a GOD ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them”.  

Am I just like the Children of Israel, forgetting where GOD has brought me from and focusing on the current Wilderness?  We stiffen our necks and set our ways against the SPIRIT OF GOD desiring what we have determined to be best for us.  GODS PLAN most likely will NOT be our plan.  HIS WISDOM is is in a totally different realm than ours.  While they wondered in the wilderness for forty years complaining and wishing this or that was better, HIS CLOUD was always before them “AND THEY LACKED NOTHING” on their journey!  GOD provides what we NEED, and a lot of what we want, but I pray that my wants and desires will so mirror HIS PLAN that “AND THEY LACKED NOTHING” will be my testimony!!!