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More than enough

February  3, 2008  - Dale

What do you think of that famous occasion when the people of God were told to stop giving because they had given too much!? On other occasions they were told not to bother because their giving was entirely hypocritical. But on this occasion there was too much to handle. An unmanageable surplus.

Hard to imagine isn’t it? Not many people know about it. But it ought to be better known because it concerns the Great Grumblers. “Why have you led us up this road only to starve us to death?” they said. After one of the most astounding events in their history they settled back into self-pity, self-righteousness and grumbled like mad because they had run out of food.

So the Lord gave them food. As much as they needed. Some collected a lot, some gathered little but all had as much as they needed. No one had too much, no one had too little.  But some thought they needed to store some until the next day, despite the fact they were told that there would be enough every day and no one was to store any (what they stored rotted and was full of maggots).

The Great Grumblers were slow learners. Later they ran out of water. “Why did you lead us out here to make us die of thirst?” they said. So the Lord himself provided water for them.

Eventually they did learn. But not before they felt so anxious at the absence of their leader that they asked for some concrete representation of the gods who had led them so far. They had more or less trusted their leader and what God had said through him up to this point. But now he had disappeared. So they pooled their gold earrings and made a little cow out of the gold. That gave them something to trust in (it also allowed them to change the rules about how they behaved).

The big showdown happened when the leader turned up again with the actual rules from the real God. Needless to say he was very angry. But the people changed their minds, and when it came time to build the place for the true worship they gave so much (not just a few earrings) that the workers said, “It’s more than enough!”.

The story says the people gave willingly and freely. Morning after morning they kept bringing freewill offerings. Why did the giving continue like this? Maybe some took longer to make up their mind. Maybe some decided they wanted to give more than they had yesterday. Maybe they slowly realised God had given them more than enough (and from a surprising source).

More than enough! God had indeed given them more than enough. God always gives more than enough. So Great Grumblers became Great Givers. Even today.

Dale

(Exodus 16-36 has the story).

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