BITTERSWEETReading: Exodus 15: 22-27
The people were thirsty. It only took them three days to forget their mighty deliverance from Pharoah and the Egyptians. The crossing of the Red Sea was already like a distant memory. Their immediate and craving desire was for water, driving all other thoughts of gratitude or trust from their minds. They were in the desert of Shur and there was nothing to drink. Eventually they came to a place where there was water, but they couldn’t drink it because it was bitter. They named that place Marah, meaning ‘bitter.’ It wasn’t just the water that was bitter. The people themselves were consumed with it. They began to complain and to turn against their leader. Once again God intervened through Moses, the water was transformed becoming good to drink.
The people’s faithfulness was fickle, their memory short. Their instant reaction to their situation was to moan and become embittered. When their trust in the God who had led them out of slavery was tested, they didn’t even pause to remember or to reflect that they had a choice as to how they reacted to their situation. Their initial impulse was to complain, not pausing to consider the unswerving faithfulness of God who had led them thus far, had performed so many miracles of deliverance for them and who surely would not now abandon them in the desert at this stage. They were a people of destiny, but they didn’t know it, nor did they recognise that their true destiny would be nurtured and shaped by the choices presented to them as they journeyed.
God, in his mercy and love, gives them another chance. “If you listen to my voice carefully and do what is right, then all will be well.” And then he adds these life giving words, “I am the Lord who heals you.” It seems there is no end to his generosity and blessings, for he leads them on to abundance beyond imagining, a mighty oasis of twelve springs and seventy palm trees.
Some people have the mistaken idea that when they become people of faith, God totally takes over and we become puppets, no longer having to take decisions or even responsibility for our own lives and reactions. That false, but widely held notion is the reason why there is so little evidence of growth or progress in so many Christian people. But, actually, the very reverse is true. When we enter into relationship with God, we are set free to make, not less, but more choices, not forced, but enabled to make right choices, to opt for things that are true and lovely and good. We can choose to go on the journey towards wholeness and holiness of life, and to my mind the two are inseparable. The way we think and choose to react in situations will no longer be determined solely by our human nature but by our new nature. No longer do we need to be held or imprisoned by past patterns of behaviour or emotional reactions. Instead we are free to make new choices, free to fulfil our destiny as children of God. No longer do we need to be totally trapped by our past. The doorway to greater freedom and wholeness is open and the decision to step through it or not is ours. We can choose to do it. Or we can choose to be slaves to the old ways, if you like, to bitterness and miss out on the abundance of God. We may feel imprisoned by someone or by some situation and feel we can’t do anything about it. We can’t make the water sweet. The only thing left to us may be the decision as to how we react. As we take a stand against the old negative ways then we experience in a deeper way than ever before the Lord who heals us.