Sunday, May 27, 2018

The Price of Leadership

Numbers 11.  Herein we learn of the feeding of the Israelites with manna from the Lord; of the  complaining of some of the riff-raff desiring meat; of the plaints of Moses; of the solution to the meat problem, and other things.

Moses heard the whining and complaining of the people and Moses sensed the anger of the Lord.  Moses:  Why me, Lord?  Are these my children, did I conceive  them; did I give them birth?  What have I done to so displease You that you have laid this noisome burden upon me?  I can't carry these people alone, the burden is too heavy.  Just go ahead and kill me.

Then before resolving the issue of whining for meat, the Lord proposed a solution to Moses's leadership problem by asking him to call  together seventy respected elders to the tabernacle and I will come down, God said, and I will take some of the power of my Spirit which is upon you and place it upon them.  Then he directed Moses to tell the people they would have meat-- meat until  it ran out their nostrils, until they loathed the very sight of it.

TBC, in which is related the abundance of quail which we learned about in Sunday school, and the upshot of  that, which we didn't.  Learn about in Sunday school, I mean.


3 comments:

Sharkbytes said...

Can't remember the reference, but there's a verse that says God gave them their desire, but sent leanness to their souls. I've always thought that was a pretty good cautionary tale.

Vee said...

Whining is definitely a "noisome burden" and Moses was one of the whiners. (Pot calling the kettle black?) This is an prime example of whining and then getting something less desirable as the behavioral "reward."

There are way too many examples in our society of whining. Mom used to say, "Stop whining or I'll give you something to whine about. And she was a mom of her word.

vanilla said...

Sharkey, your reference is Psalm 106 in which the Psalmist refers to this incident in the wilderness.

Vee, and on occasion Mom would say, Stop crying or I will give you something to cry about.