Looking Back vs. Living Forward

Numbers 8-21

Over and over again in this section, the Israelites complain about their circumstances in the wilderness, and each time, they bring up Egypt. The wilderness wandering is interminable. How is this better than a life of slavery, punctuated by a decent meal now and then?

“We ate fish in Egypt—and got it free!—to say nothing of the cucumbers and melons, the leeks and onions and garlic” (Num 11:5).

“Why didn’t we die in Egypt? Or in this wilderness? Why has God brought us to this country to kill us? Our wives and children are about to become plunder. Why don’t we just head back to Egypt? And right now!” (Num 14:2-3).

“And why did you take us out of Egypt in the first place, dragging us into this miserable country? No grain, no figs, no grapevines, no pomegranates—and now not even any water!” (Num 20:5, all texts are from The Message).

Going back, rather than forward, often looks like a good strategy. That is never more true than when selective memory has helped you filter out the bad times and romanticize the good. Those of us reading these chapters after having read Exodus know that what the Israelites remember about Egypt is not all there is to the story. These people had been slaves in Egypt. When Moses went to them with news that God had heard their cries and would rescue them, they were too worn down even to hope for an end to their trouble. When Moses asked the Pharaoh to give God’s people time off to worship God in the wilderness, he concluded they had too much free time and simply increased their workload. Now the people of Israel have forgotten all that. When something hard is happening in the wilderness, their first thought is, “If only we were back in Egypt.” 

When we are tempted to look for ways to “go back” to the good old days, it may help to remember a few things the Israelites are having trouble calling to mind here:

1. Life doesn’t run backward. We live our lives in one direction. Remembering is not a bad thing, but recreating or re-living the past is not possible and trying to do it puts us at risk of missing what new things God is doing in our present and future. 
2. The longing to go back is often based in a lie. Were things really the way we remember them? How many lashings did an Israelite slave endure before they went home to a few slices of fresh cucumber? 
3. God is trustworthy, especially when things are hard. We do not need to look back with longing. We will find God not just in the past but also ahead of us, in the future we cannot see yet. 

Timothy Dudley-Smith has written a hymn text, “O Christ the Same,” that puts our lives in the context of the news that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8) and gives us words to offer thanks, not just for the past and present, but also for the future even before it happens. In the last line, we sing, “O Christ the same, beyond our brief tomorrows, we bring you thanks for all that is to be” (text © 1984 Hope Publishing Company).