Discouraged by the Way

“And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.” Numbers 21:4

Recently I was at a revival meeting in Detroit, and I heard one of the preachers talk about this passage of scripture. While he talked, a few very interesting points were brought up. Firstly, the people here are wearied because of “the way”. Which way is that? Well, that would be referring to the way around Edom (the descendants of Esau in the Bible). See, Israel had been travelling in the wilderness for years till this point, and when they came to Edom, they finally had a chance to take a rest. Edom happened to be a nice land, full of vineyards, water for their flocks, prosperity, and wealth, so when Israel had a chance to pass through there instead of the desert, you can imagine their relief. The problem is, when Moses asked if they could go through, Edom said NO!

Imagine being the children of Israel here. Now you have to go around the land of rest and comfort you thought you were going to be able to pass through, and instead of walking through the vineyards and being in a nice place, they had to look in on the prosperity as they passed through the desert.

If you look in verse 5, you can even see their complaints, “Wherefore have ye brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is any water, and our soul loatheth this light bread.” Look at what they say. Three things are intriguing about this statement here. 1) they are saying this by the Red sea, where God had parted the waters for them before and destroyed Pharaoh’s army. 2) they’re saying that there is no bread, when they admit that God has been giving them bread from heaven. 3) they’re saying there is no water to drink, when they had just seen God provide water from a rock the chapter before!

See, what they’re really saying is what we often say in life: “I want THAT one”. I don’t want what God has provided me, I want what I can see, what I think is better. I’m getting ripped off here, why won’t God provide for me? The Bible says that God will “provide all of our needs”, not that he will provide all of our wants, and often times we, like the Israelites in this passage can overlook what has been given to us because we’re too busy looking in at the world instead of being thankful for what we have.