If you’ve ever taken a road trip with children, then I’m certain you’re quite familiar with the hallmark question that tends to get asked countless times while traveling, “Are we there yet?”

Sometimes it’s asked as a genuine question of curiosity.  Other times the question’s laced with a surly attitude – which can delay the journey further as you pause to deal with the attitude.

The latter is what Moses continually had to navigate as he led the children of Israel through the wilderness.

A journey that by all geographical calculations and historical accounts should have only taken 11 days was stretched over a period of 40 years!  (Deut. 1:2)

“Whaaaaat? Why did it take so long?” you ask.

Because the Israelites wouldn’t quit grumbling, complaining, and fussing as they tried, time and time again, to do things their way instead of trusting the Divine Planner of the trip.

God reached His tipping point with their unbelief and vowed that the adults who had been supernaturally delivered from slavery in Egypt would never enter the promised land.

He told Moses to tell them, “I have heard the Israelites’ complaints that they make against me…[they] will die in the wilderness…I swear that none of [them] will enter the land I promised to settle [them] in…I will bring [their] children…into the land…and they will enjoy it.” (Numbers 14:26-31)

The book of Joshua says it this way, “The Israelites wandered in the wilderness forty years, until all the nation’s men of war who had come out of Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord.” (Joshua 5:6)

Hindsight being 20/20, it’s easy to read the Israelite’s story and judge them harshly because of their blatant propensity to grumble, complain, and rebel.  

Can’t they see that their fussy attitude is delaying their journey? 

Don’t they know that their continual rebellion is blocking God’s intended blessing for them?

But, they didn’t…and, it cost them.

How many times have we prevented God’s blessing in our lives by clogging the pipeline with complaints? 

How often do we delay or add layers of detours to our journey because of suspicion and mistrust towards God?

Oh, that we would learn from the children of Israel’s story and continually root those bad attitudes out of our lives so that God’s blessing would flow freely to us and through us!

Today, let’s look to God and ask Him to help us, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that (we) may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom (we) shine like stars in the world.” (Phil. 2:14-16)

Until next time, Grace and Glory!