Life Skills Lacking

“And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Ex 16:3 AV)

We have to be careful here.  If we are not diligent to remember the context, we can be a bit harsh with the people.  We must remember they were enslaved for 430 years.  That is a long time.  According to their words above, the Egyptians provided stew (flesh pots) and bread for them on a daily basis.  Their captors provided food, clothing, water, and shelter.  Meager, for sure.  But provided they were.  If so, ten generations had been taken care of by the state.  Over that time, no doubt, they lost the ability to be self-sufficient.  They would not have known how to plant and harvest crops.  They would have lost the ability to cook more than the necessary.  They would have lost the ability to mend cloths, manage a household, or basic food storage.  When a people are raised by a nanny-state, they lose their ability to care for themselves.  This is what was happening here.  They complained about water.  They complained about food.  God provided both.  The Bible also tells us the LORD saw to it that even the soles of their shoes never wore out.  What they didn’t get was the LORD’s plan to mature them into a nation that could survive without the need to depend on pagan nations.  This maturity process took forty years of trials and tribulations.  Let us remember their murmuring was not because of rebellion, per se.  Rather, it was a lack of skills and maturity that brought it on.

One of our rights of passage was to go off for a summer and work at camp.  Before we got there, my father had invested in us many experiences which would help us to survive.  There were many camping trips requiring we learn how to cook over an open fire.  There were tons of patches that needed sewing and socks that needed darning.  There were first aid skills which we learned, knots that were mastered, and wildlife to study.  If I ever found myself in a survival situation, I am confident as long as I was prepared, this scout could survive.  What this required were sleepless nights of hunger because we didn’t master the skills of starting a fire without matches, or worse, with wet wood.  There would be times of duress where we thought we were lost until we were able to navigate by compass and map.  There were times we were cold because we failed to insulate our tent properly.  There were injuries that didn’t heal as fast as they should have because we didn’t yet know how to treat certain ailments.  I distinctly remember my first and only case of poison ivy.  I remember a few bee stings that hurt far more than they were meant to.  We learned, by experience, to tend to things as best we could.  We learned so that we could be independent.

Before we become overly critical of Israel in their infant years as a nation, let us remember they spent for centuries being taken care of.  Now, they are thrust in the situation of complete independence.  This is why the LORD had such mercy and tenderness on them.  Although both Moses and the LORD lost patience with them, they came around to show compassion.  They remembered the weakness of the people and understood that standing on their own would take time and faith.  God would always see to their needs.  But God is not a nanny here.  He expects His children to learn a little self-sufficiency.  He expects them to gather their own manna and seethe their own quail.  He may provide the means.  But they provided the method.  A hard lesson to learn, but one that is necessary.  This is important to remember when we care for those who are weaker than we are.  Our goal is the help them transition from student to teacher.  From the mentored to the mentoring.  This means we must help them much in the beginning.  Patience and compassion are the keys.