Do Not Forget

"And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in Him and in Moses His servant." Exodus 14:31

The Israelites witnessed miracle after miracle, even as the shackles of slavery fell off their ankles. They were protected by the goodness of God from the Egyptian plagues and were led by His goodness out of Egypt.

But the most miraculous display of God's goodness was when He shored up the waves of the Red Sea to open a path for their escape. I can picture the Israelites looking up like bewildered tourists at the water, which rose like glass skyscrapers on either side. "Wow, look at that . . . God is amazing!" they must have exclaimed.

If you want to hear how thrilled they were, read Exodus 15. The people were so excited that they went on for twenty-one verses shouting hosannas to the Lord. But exactly three short verses later, in Exodus 15:24, their joy turned sour. It seems that for three days "they traveled in the desert without finding water . . . So the people grumbled."

It was as if the miracle of the Red Sea had never happened. The excitement of the Israelites' songs and praises faded all too quickly when they ran into a little trouble. And the irony is, they grumbled about water! Didn't they recall that God could do wonderful things with water? They had just watched him hold back a whole sea of it. yet they couldn't trust for His goodness even for three short days. How quickly they forget.

Yet how quickly we forget. W>e are slow to remember God's goodness, yet quick to complain. We doubt the protection and provision of our God. Perhaps we ought to take the advice God gave those Israelites in Deuteronomy 4:9: "Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen." That's one verse we ought not to forget.

By Joni Eareckson Tada, taken from Women's Devotional Bible 1