Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Exodus 17:1-7
Imagine leading a band of men, women and children through harsh desert conditions without a steady supply of food or water, depending on God for survival? What may have seemed a good idea at the beginning--escaping slavery--now seems a situation of being caught between a rock and a hard place. Slavery or the desert? We find the Israelites in these few verses of Exodus 17:1-7, again thirsty for water and complaining bitterly. Because we know that prior to this encounter God has provided both water and manna, and because we know that at the end of the story the Israelites do survive and reach the Promised Land, we can perhaps too easily dismiss their intense fear and anxiety when faced with a new life-threatening challenge.
Does this desert journey not offer us a metaphorical mirror to our own life journeys? How do we trust deeply in God's abiding spirit to sustain us when from our human perspective life seems insecure, or even threatening?
-Marianne Mellinger
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