I always thought the Israelites were ungrateful.
God splits the sea. He drowns Pharaoh’s army. He feeds them bread from the sky every single morning. And within weeks they’re standing around complaining like none of it happened. I used to read Exodus and shake my head at them. How do you watch a miracle and then, three days later, act like God’s never done anything for you?
Then I ended up in my own wilderness season and realized I’ve been doing the same thing.
Turns out I’m not different
Not a flood-and-fire wilderness. The quieter kind. Where nothing’s technically wrong, but nothing’s easy either, and the thing you prayed for hasn’t shown up yet. Where you know — you know — you’ve been provided for before. Multiple times. In ways you couldn’t have engineered yourself. And still, somewhere around the third or fourth hard week, you start grumbling like it’s the first time you’ve ever been thirsty.
That’s the part that got me. It’s not that I forgot God had come through before. I could have listed the times, in order, if you’d asked me. I just stopped letting that history mean anything for today. Yesterday’s provision didn’t feel like it covered today’s problem. So I grumbled anyway.
The Israelites did this at Massah and Meribah — testing God, asking “Is the Lord among us or not?” right after he’d parted a sea for them. Not because the evidence was thin. Because fear has a short memory on purpose. It doesn’t want you to remember. Remembering makes it harder to panic.
What I do instead
I’ve started keeping an actual list. Not a vague “God is good” feeling — specific instances. The time the money showed up from a place I didn’t ask. The door that closed and I was furious about it until I saw, months later, what it kept me from walking into. The conversation I almost didn’t have that changed everything after.
When I’m in a dry stretch now, I go back to that list on purpose. Not to talk myself out of how hard the current thing is — the wilderness is still the wilderness, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone. But to remind myself that the pattern is real. He has fed me in the wilderness before. That’s not a platitude. That’s a track record.
Deuteronomy 8 says God let Israel hunger in the wilderness, then fed them with manna, “that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone.” The hard stretch wasn’t a sign he’d left. It was the setting where the lesson only makes sense. You don’t learn that God provides by having everything already provided. You learn it by running out and watching what happens next.
Complaining to God is allowed
I want to be careful here, because I don’t think the answer is “never complain, just smile through it.” Half the Psalms are complaints. David asks God how long he’ll be forgotten, asks why God is hiding, asks why the wicked prosper — out loud, on the record, in Scripture we still read three thousand years later. The Psalms give you permission to say the hard thing to God directly.
The Israelites’ problem wasn’t that they were honest about being thirsty and scared. It’s that the complaining stopped being addressed to God and turned into a settled conclusion about him — that he’d brought them out there to let them die, that Egypt was better, that this was a mistake. That’s the shift I try to catch in myself now. Being honestly afraid and asking God for help is one thing. Deciding he’s absent or he’s failed you is a different thing entirely, and it’s the second one that’s actually grumbling.
Why it’s not a simple fix
I wish I could say I read Deuteronomy 8 once and now I never grumble. That’s not how it’s gone. Knowing the pattern doesn’t switch off the fear reflex. I still catch myself, most days into a hard stretch, running the “what if this doesn’t work out” loop instead of the “he’s done this before” loop. The difference now is I notice it faster, and I have something to redirect to when I do.
Matthew 7 says to ask and it will be given, seek and you’ll find, knock and it’ll be opened — and then makes the case from the lesser to the greater: if you, being flawed, know how to give good gifts to your kids, how much more will your Father give good things to those who ask him. That’s not a formula that makes the waiting shorter. It’s a reason to trust the character of the one you’re waiting on.
What Scripture says about that specifically
Romans 8 says we didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but a spirit of adoption — and adopted children don’t have to wonder if they’ll be fed. 1 Peter says to cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you — not because the anxiety is irrational, but because he’s the kind of God worth handing it to. And Mark 9 has that line I come back to more than almost any other in the Bible: a father asking Jesus to heal his son says “I believe; help my unbelief.” That’s the most honest prayer in Scripture. Not “I have no doubt.” Just — I believe, and I also need help believing more.
Knowing it in your head and not your heart
That’s really the gap I’m describing. I know, intellectually, that God provided in the wilderness before. I could recite it. But knowing something and feeling steady because of it are different operations, and moving a truth from your head to your heart seems to take repetition, not a single insight. Proverbs talks about writing things on the tablet of your heart — that’s not a one-time note, that’s something you carve in over and over until it’s actually there.
Galatians talks about not growing weary in doing good, because in due season we’ll reap if we don’t give up. “Due season” is doing a lot of work in that verse. It’s not “immediately.” It’s not even “soon” by my definition. It’s whenever the season actually is, which is not information I get in advance.
Your walk won’t look like mine
I’m not writing this like I’ve got it solved, because I don’t think “solved” is the right goal for this one. I think the goal is just to grumble a little less than last time, and remember a little faster than last time. Some seasons that’ll look like real progress. Some seasons it won’t feel like progress at all, and I’ll be back to complaining before I even notice I’ve started.
Whatever your wilderness looks like right now — and I’d guess if you’re reading this, you’re in one, or you just came out of one, or you can feel one coming — I don’t think the invitation is to fake being fine. It’s to keep bringing the real thing to God instead of quietly deciding he’s not paying attention. That’s a different posture than pretending you’re not thirsty. It’s admitting you’re thirsty, and asking the one who’s fed you before.
So here’s me sharing
Not advice from the other side of it. Just where I am, mid-wilderness, still working out how to remember faster than I forget. If you’re in your own dry season right now, I hope it helps to know someone else is grumbling too, and trying — imperfectly, one day at a time — to bring it to God instead of just sitting in it.
Carol Tune, REALTOR® · Local Realty Agency of Fort Worth · TREC #0854512