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Deborah Scaling Kiley lived a nightmare. During a fierce storm, the yacht she and her four friends had been sailing sank, and they spent five perilous days in the open sea without food or water. Before Kiley's eventual rescue, two of the men drank salt water out of desperation, and the hallucinations started. They died when they slid off the side of the dinghy into a sea full of sharks to “get cigarettes.” In order to drown out the sounds of the sharks, Kiley repeated aloud, over and over, the words of the Lord's Prayer.
Each of us faces times of crisis. Will we react in despair, or will we cling to faith? In today's reading, the Israelites had been walking three days in the desert without water. Their thirst was agonizing, affecting most profoundly children and elderly people. People no doubt were collapsing, and finally, having reached utter desperation, they cried out to Moses, “What are we to drink?” God provided water for them, and all was well—until the provisions with which they left Egypt ran out. Their empty stomachs churned, and they remembered the delicacies of Egypt. This time, their complaining turned to accusation: “You have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death!” (16:3).
Could this be the same community of people who witnessed the cruel effects of the ten plagues on the Egyptians and how God had mercifully saved them? Did they remember how God miraculously parted the Red Sea, how they had walked across on dry ground and the Egyptians had drowned in pursuit?
Everything they'd proclaimed about God in Exodus 15 was forgotten. They made no appeal to the power of God they had seen displayed so visibly. All they now accepted was the evidence of their senses: they felt thirsty, and they felt hungry. This they interpreted to mean that God had somehow forgotten them. They began to despair when they should have been praying.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We know that we should pray in times of crisis, but hopelessness keeps us from praying. It's impossible to pray when we are somehow convinced that God doesn't love us or is powerless to change our situation. Do you believe either of those two lies? You can know whether or not these lies have taken root, when your impulse, similar to that of the Israelites, is to complain rather than to pray. Confess to God where your faith is weak, and pray that He will strengthen your faith (cf. Mark 9:24).
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