When Hope Turns Bitter
The Israelites had just come out of Egypt, miraculously delivered from slavery by God Himself. They had seen the Egyptian army, whom they had so feared, drowned by the very water that had stood up to form walls on either side of the Israelites as they walked through the Red Sea on dry ground.
They sang and rejoiced as they began their journey into the wilderness, but soon that rejoicing faded as they were faced with a new problem: where to find water.
The first day passed, then the second, and when the third day dawned, the Israelites had still found no source of water. Then, as they journeyed that day, there was a little glimmer in the distance. Water!
I don’t know who saw it first, or if there was a mad dash to the banks of Marah, or just a rippling whisper throughout the multitude which gradually crescendoed into peals of excitement. All the Bible says is that,
“And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter” (Exodus 15:23)
The people’s faith and joy at God’s deliverance from the Egyptians had been forgotten in their thirst, and when their expectations had been disappointed, they did what you and I often do:
“And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?”(v.24)
They turned from the object of their disappointed hopes and began grumbling against the person they held responsible. But Moses could do nothing about the people’s need for water. He was, in a sense, just the messenger, a representative of God, yes, but also just a man, with mankind’s limitations.
In the face of a multitude seething with disappointment and anger, he did the only thing he could do: he took the matter to God.
“And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a stature and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments,, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.” (vv.25-26)
You see, there was a lesson in this disappointment which the Israelites would not have learned if they had never suffered need. God brought them to a place of thirst in order to show them their need of His provision and healing.
Perhaps God’s gracious provision pointed out to the Israelites that the bitterness wasn’t just in the water, but in their own hearts as well. Yet He promises to be the fulfillment of their needs, as He still does for us today.
Hope becomes bitter when we have fixed our eyes on the object of our hope, instead of on the Lord who alone can provide it. A bitter heart is a faithless heart. It is a heart that has embraced Satan’s lie that God isn’t quite as good as He is supposed to be.
Just as it was for the Israelites, the salve for the bitterness of disappointed hopes is to look to God, to accept and believe His promises, to look to Him to fulfill the desires of our hearts as He deems best, and to trust His wisdom and goodness, however impossible the situation may seem.
“Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever: Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners: The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous” (Psalm 146:5-8)