God’s people should be the most satisfied, contented people in the world. We receive God’s physical provisions in addition to the multitude of spiritual blessings poured on us abundantly from God’s rich storehouses. However, there are times that we complain. What must God think when His people habitually complain?

God heard the complaints of the Hebrews in Egyptian bondage. “Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob” (Ex. 2:23b-24). The moaning and complaining of the Hebrews stirred God’s mercy and He acted in a powerful way to deliver them from their bondage.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long before God heard these same people making the same noise, but this time it was directed at Him! Exodus 16:2 says, “the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.” However, Moses made it clear their complaints were really against the Lord Himself (v. 8).

These complaints did not stop. They continued as God brought His people to the threshold of the Promised Land. When the spies returned, ten of them said they could not enter the land. “And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, ‘If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!’” (Num. 14:2).

If we will look at this from God’s perspective, it isn’t difficult to see how this generation failed to enter their rest. God gave them every reason to rejoice. Instead, they complained every step of the way to the Promised Land, then complained about what they found when they got there.

Are we any different? I hear a lot of my brethren complaining a lot of the time. Oftentimes I am heard joining them in this sin. God hears these complaints. What must He think?

Paul warned us not to be like this generation of God’s people (1 Cor. 10:1-11). Instead, we need to take seriously the admonition to “do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:14-15).