After the Israelites left Egypt, they got stuck in a major way, one that was hard to get unstuck from. They got stuck in a mentality that made it impossible to move forward. In fact, they got so stuck in this mentality that they became moaners and groaners, grumblers and mumblers for the rest of their lives.
Take a look at Numbers 11:4–6:
“Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”
When the Israelites left Egypt, a “rabble” of people, likely lower-class workers or other slaves, followed along with them. These riffraff began to crave the good things of Egypt, and the people of Israel also began to complain as they remembered the variety of foods they were used to.
Moses heard all the families standing in the doorways of their tents whining. The Lord became extremely angry, and Moses was also aggravated.
Every time I read through the story of Exodus and the Israelites being delivered, I always think the same thing: how can you complain after you’ve seen so many miracles? You’ve seen the ten plagues. You’ve seen the Red Sea parted. You’ve seen manna from heaven. And yet within a short amount of time, they’re complaining again.
And every time I read it, it hits me:
We’re the Israelites. We’re hardly different in our mumbling and grumbling.
If you’re living in the United States, can I tell you, you hit the jackpot of life. This isn’t a perfect country, but most of us don’t have to worry about where our food is coming from, what clothes we’re going to wear, where our kids are going to go to school, or whether we’ll have a roof over our heads. We’ve got so many blessings.
But here’s the crazy thing: if we’re not careful, we’ll let our blessings turn into our burdens.
We can allow our blessings, all God has done, all God has helped with, all that He has provided, and overlook that, just to gripe and complain our way through life. We’ll groan about what we have, whine about what we don’t have, and moan our way through life.
It doesn’t have to be that way. That’s why I want to give you three warnings and three practices to follow if you want to live as a lifegiving source of praise, not as a lifelong moaner and groaner.
In his classic motivational book, The Greatest Salesman in the World, Og Mandino says “I will not allow yesterday's successes to lull me in today's complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure.”
Somewhere along the way, some of those traveling with Moses started remembering the past incorrectly. They started fantasizing about Egypt. “Oh, the food we had in Egypt. Oh, the good old days.”
But here’s what I’ve come to understand, the good old days were never as good as you remember them.
For some of us, we’re not being fruitful where we are because we’re too busy talking about how amazing the past was.
Ecclesiastes 7:10 says this,
“Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.”
I believe Solomon gave this advice because when you fixate on your past, it keeps you from fully stepping into your present.
That’s what was happening with the Israelites. They weren’t enjoying their present freedom because they were too busy fantasizing about their past slavery. They were free, but they were still talking like slaves. Delivered, but dissatisfied. Fed by heaven, but fantasizing about Egypt. While they were complaining about manna, they were missing the miracle.
Manna fell from heaven every morning. They received daily bread, divinely provided and supernaturally supplied. It was free, God’s direct provision for them, yet they still griped about the very thing God was using to sustain them.
Does that sound familiar?
A lot of us do the same thing with the very things we once prayed for.
You prayed for that relationship, and now all you do is gripe about your spouse. You prayed for kids, and now all you do is complain about your kids. You asked for the opportunity, and now all you do is complain about the responsibility that came with it.
When you obsess over what you used to have, you become blind to what you currently have.
It’s like a farmer holding a bag of seed and refusing to plant it because he just keeps talking about last year’s harvest. He can’t produce anything in the present because he’s too busy reminiscing about the past.
And hear me in this: you can’t reap a new harvest while worshiping an old season.
Numbers 11:4 says,
“Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat!”
The complaining didn’t start directly with the Israelites, the people around them first mumbled and grumbled. The “rabble” weren’t the leaders. They weren’t even the majority. But they were the loudest. They were complainers, agitators, dissatisfied voices, and what started with them spread to everybody else because negativity is contagious.
If you put one rotten apple in a basket, it doesn’t take long for the rest of the apples to start spoiling. The healthy apples don’t fix the rotten one. The rotten one infects the healthy.
Negativity works the same way. All it needs is proximity.
The Israelites had a cloud by day, fire by night, manna from heaven, water from a rock, and still negative people standing in the middle of a miracle found something missing.
That’s how negativity works. Negative people can be headed toward the promised land and still find something to complain about.
It reminds me of an Albert Einstein quote that’s so good: “Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.”
By this point, Egypt wasn’t the threat anymore. Pharaoh wasn’t holding them back and their past slavery wasn’t what was keeping them in the wilderness. Their mindset was the only thing keeping them from the Promised Land God had for them.
Numbers 14:1–4 and 26–30 says this,
“Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ‘How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the LORD, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.’”
This is the moment after Moses sends twelve spies into the Promised Land.
They come back and say the land is amazing. It’s flowing with milk and honey. But ten of the twelve also say, “Yeah, but…”
Yeah, it’s good, but the cities are fortified.
Yeah, it’s good, but the people are huge.
Yeah, it’s good, but there’s no way we can do this.
Immediately upon their return from the Promised Land, the very place God promised He would deliver them to after saving them from Egyptian captivity, they spread fear through the whole camp. Everyone starts weeping, complaining, and talking about going back to Egypt. They even say, “Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?”
And what’s wild is this: nothing had even happened yet. These negative reports were solely “what if” speculations.
That’s what “what if” does. It will wreck your peace in a moment. The Israelites weren’t stuck outside the Promised Land because Egypt still had power over them. They were stuck because of their “what if” attitude.
Remember: the wilderness was never supposed to be their permanent address. It was something they were supposed to move through on the way to the promise.
And some of us are stuck in places God intended us to move through because we’ve settled into a victim mentality. We’ve made complaining our language. We’ve made negativity our default. We’ve convinced ourselves that our past is what’s still controlling our present.
But it’s not your Egypt keeping you there anymore, it’s your attitude.
So how do you flip the script? If your default is negative, how do you actually change?
Let me give you three practices.
You don’t get to pick your family, but you do pick your friends. So choose wisely.
The Bible has a lot to say about our companions.
Like Proverbs 13:20,
“Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”
Or 1 Corinthians 15:33,
“Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’”
Who you travel with, you eventually become. If you walk with grateful people, gratitude grows in you. If you walk with faithful people, faith rises in you. If you walk with negative people, criticism multiplies in you.
That’s why you’ve got to be intentional about who you walk with.
Philippians 4:8 says,
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”
That word “fix” means to place firmly, setting your mind there on purpose, so it doesn’t move away from it. But if we’re honest, many of us do the exact opposite.
Instead of focusing on what’s true, we focus on what’s fake and invalid. Instead of what’s honorable, we focus on what’s offensive and corrupt. Instead of what’s right, we focus on what’s wrong and dishonest. Instead of what’s pure, we focus on what’s imperfect and complicated. Instead of what’s lovely, we fix our thoughts on what’s ugly and unpleasant. Instead of what’s admirable, we focus on what’s shameful and appalling. Instead of what’s excellent and worthy of praise, we dwell on what’s pointless to complain about.
By the way, Paul is writing that from prison, chained to a guard.
If we’re honest, some of us have so many good things in life, and yet we focus on the one thing going wrong. If we really want to gravitate towards the positive and let go of the negative, we have to start fixing our thoughts on the biblical things.
Romans 12:2-3 says,
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect… think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”
If you’re going to truly change your life, you’ve got to allow the Holy Spirit to change the way you think, what you focus on, and what you get fixated with. That’s where transformation begins.
Ephesians 4:29 tells us,
“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
Can I ask you, is what you say to your spouse encouraging? Is what you say to your kids life-giving? Is what you say to your coworkers helpful? Are the words you speak an encouragement to those who hear them, and good and helpful to all who listen?
Because the truth is, if all your kids hear is correction, and never encouragement, they’re not hearing life from you. And they need life from you because they’ve already got a whole world trying to tear them down and define them.
Proverbs says the power of life and death is in your words. That means your words are never neutral. They’re either bringing life or bringing death. They’re either building up or tearing down.
Every word we speak, we reap either benefits or consequences from it. If you want something different for your words, if you want to move away from mumbling and grumbling, then you’ve got to choose differently and let the Holy Spirit produce self-control in you.
I love this prayer:
Psalm 19:14, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
Let what my heart is focused on be acceptable to You. Because if my heart focuses on the right thing, my words will follow.
And hear me: if you’ll stop focusing on your Egypt and all the bad, and start focusing on what God has done, on what is good, on what is true, on what is worthy of praise, your words will follow. And when your words follow, you’ll change the dynamic of your home, your marriage, your relationships, and every room you walk into.
That’s how you stop being a moaner and groaner. That’s how you stop getting stuck in a grumbling spirit.