Exodus 32:1-6
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2 So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden[a] calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” 6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. (ESV)
Have you ever thought about how crazy manna is? It’s literally some bread-like substance falling from the sky, and the Israelites ate it for 40 years. Every day except the Sabbath, without fail, it fed the whole nation. The Israelites were completely dependent on God for everything they could possibly need, and God provided, for 40 years. Yet despite this, we still see how they would repeatedly rebel against God’s authority. One of the times that sticks out in my mind occurs in Exodus 32 when the Israelites build a golden calf to worship while Moses is on Mt. Sinai. We see in the passage above that when Moses was gone for a long period of time, the people basically decided that they needed something concrete to worship, so they made their own God out of gold.
Obviously, we know this was wrong because we are not to put other gods before God, but idolatry is not the topic I want to tackle today. I started off writing this article talking about manna because something that I only just recently started to consider is the fact that this was during the period when the Israelites were receiving manna. They were rebelling against the God that provided their food every morning! This realization astounded me! How could they possibly rebel with manna still on the ground? The Israelites had seen miracle after miracle but still chose to rebel.
The sad fact is that the Israelites had come to a place in their lives where they were numb to God’s blessings. God had provided so much for them that they came to expect blessings like it was something owed to them by the world. Gathering manna wasn’t a thankful or worshipful part of the day anymore. Getting up to gather manna became the equivalent of hitting the alarm clock when it goes off in the morning and forcing yourself to go to school. And if you slept too late, you would complain about having to walk too far because all the close manna had been gathered. They became used to God’s blessings, so they no longer attributed them to him. Becoming numb to God’s blessings is such a dangerous place to be. It led the Israelites to make an idol to worship.
Now I know that you may be thinking, “How does this apply to me? I haven’t made any golden calves recently, and I don’t have to collect manna.” When I began thinking about this passage, I was in the same place until I started thinking this: What blessings in my life am I numb to, and how does this affect my view of God? Well, let’s list a few of the things God blesses me with daily. I have an incredible church family both in Starkville and in Meridian. I can attend Mississippi State University. I ate dinner last night. I have a car. I have a loving family. That list took me a grand total of 10 seconds to come up with, and the more I thought about it, the longer the list of my daily blessings or the “manna” that I collect daily got. These are things God has blessed me with, and I honestly cannot tell you the last time I even acknowledged that he gave them to me, much less thanked him for them. Even though I don’t collect bread off the ground to eat every morning, I am completely numb to my own blessings.
Every action has a reaction, so what does the action of becoming numb to the blessings of God do to our lives? We see what it did to the Israelites; it drove them to idol worship. When we become numb to God’s blessings, we stop seeing him as an influence in our lives. I’m not saying that I serve God because of his blessings, but when I am numb to his blessings, it is much easier to live my life however I want to. I stop praising him. I find myself just going through the motions of church, and I stop caring that he is God. Let me be honest: Dewayne away from God is a pretty nasty person. I’m mean, prideful, lustful, or anything else you can imagine. Remembering God’s blessings reminds me of my purpose in life, which is to serve him.
So my question is this. Do you identify with the Israelites? Have you become numb to God’s blessing and influence in your life? If so, you might be asking, what now? One thing I have found helpful in my life is making a physical list of my blessings. If you do this and take it seriously, it will shock you how many things we just overlook daily that God has given us. Then I want you to take this list and go somewhere by yourself and pray. Let me be clear: I do not want this prayer to be you asking God for anything, no petitions or even prayer requests; just go over that list of blessings, and praise him for it. Tell God how incredible every blessing is. Doing so serves several purposes. First, you are completing the purpose of your whole life, which is to praise God. Also, you begin to realize all that God does for you, and it becomes much more difficult to become numb to his blessings. I also want to challenge you to start identifying the things God has blessed you with in daily life, no matter how small. It is very difficult to stray from God when you are constantly identifying his influence in your life. So that’s my challenge: Go praise God in every detail of your life, and never allow yourself to become numb to his blessings.