breathing and sleeping. We experience something we don’t want, or we

don’t get to have something we do want, and we complain. Not all

complaints are evil; sometimes there are very good reasons to raise our

voice and talk about what isn’t right. But the tendency is for our own

judgment about ‘how things should be’ to replace true faith in our

living God. Ultimately, we complain because we aren’t in charge and

don’t have the power to make everything exactly how we think it should

be. Not long after being delivered from Egyptian bondage, Israel starts

a pattern of complaining… about God! In our story for this Sunday,

we’ll see that God understood their tendency to complain, and invited

them to trust Him more. Maybe when we complain, He’s inviting us to do

the same!