Bitter-Sweet Faith
When Life gives you lemons…God makes lemonade
We’re all too familiar with the proverbial phrase about making lemonade out of the lemons life gives us. Sometimes the “lemonade” is abstract, like a lesson learned. But what about our actual circumstances? Many times things are out of our control and we can do nothing to impact our present situation. Despite our best heartfelt efforts, things are just the way they are :(
You’re following God and at the time of your greatest need, you encounter an impasse. You wonder what in the world is going on. Maybe even the timing is terrible — quite possibly you’re following God as you work through some challenges your facing, waiting and wondering how God will meet your needs and at what feels like the peak of your struggles, right when you need God to provide you hit a brick wall. What gives? Why is this happening now?!?
For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures. — Romans 15:4
One of the chief purposes of the bible is for God’s people to learn and grow in their knowledge of him. During their exodus from Egypt, the Israelites experienced this exact situation.
After God fell upon Egypt with a series of horrible plagues, culminating in the death of the first born, the Israelites were finally free. They escaped Pharaoh’s army of chariots when God parted the Red Sea. They sang, danced, and praised God for their victory over the Egyptians (Exodus 15:21).
Now, no longer slaves, the Israelites continued to follow God through the Sinai Peninsula. Exodus 15:22 tells us that they traveled for three days and didn’t have a drop of water to drink. To make matters worse, when they finally did find water, it wasn’t drinkable — it was bitter. Imagine the plight of the Israelites, now they were finally free, Pharaoh was defeated but they were homeless, had no food or shelter, and were walking through mountainous terrain. The 3-day journey would have been around 30–40 miles and that’s with no water. Also, remember the Israelites plundered the Egyptians (Exodus 3:21–22; 12:36). So, they were wearing extra clothes and jewelry. Add to this that scholars estimate the number of Israelites was more than 2 million, including children and elderly.
So…the Israelites are traveling through tough terrain for 3 days — they have nothing to drink and they finally reach a water source and it’s bitter! God planned it this way, he led them to the bitter water. It wasn’t that the Israelites discovered a water source that just happened to be bitter. No, God knew what he was doing.
When Pharaoh finally let the Israelites go, God didn’t lead them via the shorter route through Philistine territory, he led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness and towards the Red Sea (Ex. 13:17–18). God knew exactly what he was doing. Looking at the map, there were definitely shorter routes to their destination. Modern society is all about efficiency and productivity. We want to get from point A to point B as quickly as we can. Transportation technology is constantly advancing to become more efficient. Efficiency is great for working through a task list, but not necessarily great for spiritual formation.
When the Israelites reached the water supply they must have been relieved to finally have refreshment. Imagine how their relief turned to shock when they tasted the bitter water! So, they started complaining — they turned against Moses and God. “What are we going to drink,” they demanded. Moses turned to God and was shown a piece of wood — Moses threw it in the water and the Israelites could now drink.
…“I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I have sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.” — Exodus 3:12
God kept his promise to be with them — he used a piece of wood to provide drinking water for his people. The grumbling and complaining against Moses (and untimely God) would characterize the Israelites faith. Despite God’s display of saving power, they would grumble and complain repeatedly — even wishing they were back in slavery where they had food to eat!
Before we judge them too harshly, we can surely identify with their struggles. Most of us live a life of comfort avoiding discomfort at all costs. Out culture encourages comfort and ease and technology makes it possible. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this lifestyle — it does promote a perspective that’s focused on felt needs rather than deeper spiritual concerns.
So he cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a tree. When he threw it into the water, the water became drinkable. He made a statute and ordinance for them at Marah and He tested them there. — Exodus 15:25
When the people grumbled against Moses, he cried out to God and was shown a tree, or large woody plant, and threw it into the water making it drinkable. The Hebrew word for “showed” in this verse is “yarah”, has a plain meaning of: “to point, show, direct.” But, the word “yarah” forms the basis for the Hebrew word “torah” which came to mean “Law, teaching, instruction.” So, God wasn’t merely meeting their immediate needs, he was teaching them something.
What was God teaching? Was he teaching Moses how to make bitter water sweet? Yes, he was teaching Moses this in order to care for his people. But why did God lead the Israelites to bitter water? The next verse gives us the answer:
He said, “If you will carefully obey the LORD your God, do what is right in His eyes, pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am Yahweh who heals you.” — Exodus 15:26
What’s the lesson to learn? There are lots of them that we can infer:
- Life is an experience in both blessings and bitterness
- God keeps his promises
- When we forget God’s past work in our lives we we tend to doubt him
- How easily we walk by sight rather than by faith
These are all valuable lessons and each of them could be (and have been) expanded into longer lessons. But here’ another lesson to consider:
God leads us to “bitter water” at the time of our greatest need so that he can reveal himself to us.
We like to think that God sees our need and provides for us in a transactional, direct manner: he sees our need and provides, problem solved. He may do this, but the testimony of the bible reveals that God many times works in more sophisticated ways. His goal isn’t merely to provide for us, but to draw us into a deeper relationship with him. In order to deepen our relationship with God, we must have crisis points in our lives that test our faith and allow God to work.
Like the Israelites traveling through the desert with nothing to drink we can easily focus on the present circumstances — “bitter water” isn’t merely in our path to make things more difficult, but it serves as a sign of God’s presence. Encountering obstacles can be an indicator that God is getting ready to work in our lives. The “bitter water” may be an attention-getter or even a divine appointment.
