Numbers 20:2 And there was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.
Well, it is a new year. If you are thinking to yourself, “Wow, 2021! All my troubles are behind me now,” guess what? We don’t know that 2021 will necessarily be better. Now, I am an optimist. I look forward to this new year, but I have to say that last year was an extraordinary year personally, publically, nationally, and internationally.
The truth is, we have a new year and we are going to have new problems. Problems don’t play fairly. They do not come one at a time. They usually hunt in packs, and part of what makes a problem a problem is the inopportune time at which it appears. How many times have you thought to yourself, “If this had happened yesterday, it wouldn’t be such a big problem”? What will this year hold? I don’t know, but I think about these things when I come to Numbers 20.
In Numbers 20 the children of Israel are on the very brink of the land God had promised. Egypt and slavery were behind them. Happy days were here again, right? Well, there are always new problems with a new year and a new land, and I don’t know what the new problems will be.
Numbers 20:2 says, “And there was no water for the congregation: and they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.” If you have ever led people, whether it is a third-grade class, your own home, or people at work, you know that sometimes you have problems that are not necessarily of your making. You may well take the blame for the problems of the people you lead. That is where Moses and Aaron were. Moses was leading a people who were without water. They were in a wilderness.
If you are in a desert environment, having no water can be a life-threatening problem. The children of Israel blamed Moses and Aaron as if it was their idea to be without water. Verse 3 says, “And the people chode with Moses, and spake, saying, Would God that we had died when our brethren died before the LORD!” They were saying, “We wish God had killed us when He killed Korah and those other rebels. But here we are in the wilderness dying slowing without water. We would be better if we had just stayed in Egypt.”
It is amazing that in their hearts they never left Egypt. Here were people wishing for the leeks, onions, garlic, and fish that they had had in slavery! Now they had freedom. Most people would rather have certain slavery than uncertain freedom. They were no longer slaves so they no longer had a daily portion from Egypt. They were living by faith, and God was taking care of them. The children of Israel were now living in freedom, but that brought with it some problems.
Now, for people like you and me, this is a new year and you are going to have new problems. Well, you can only go forward. You cannot go back. The children of Israel wanted to go back to the slavery from which God had freed them. Sometimes the past, as good or bad as it may be, is more comfortable than the future because at least you know what it is. The future you do not know.
The people said to Moses, “And why have ye brought up the congregation of the LORD into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there?” Then, they called the land that God had given them an “evil” place. It wasn’t evil! Just because times are not easy does not mean that God’s plan is evil.
Today, for this new year, fix your eyes on what is ahead. Learn from the past, but don’t live in the past. Remember that God will provide for you. I’m not preaching health, wealth, and no problems, but I am saying that you wouldn’t need God’s help if you didn’t have problems. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, and sufficient unto the day is God’s provision.
God’s providence means that God can look ahead and provide right now for things you do not yet need. He knows what you will need in the future. It may be that some of the difficult things that you are going through right now are things that God is using to equip you in a way that will be beneficial to you in the future. I’m not making light of your difficult times, but God will provide ahead of time and you can only go forward. It is a new day and a new year, and maybe you would rather not do what you need to do today, but you can only look ahead. God will provide as you trust Him.