How Do You Sing on Sunday and Complain on Monday: Exodus 15:22–27

There is something very human about moments where our hearts are filled with faith one day and then crash into fear the next. We can stand in church overwhelmed with gratitude for what God has done, then find ourselves grumbling before lunch the next day. It is shocking how quickly joy evaporates when pressure rises. Exodus shows us we are not the first to fall into this pattern. Israel goes from tambourines on the shore to complaints in the desert in three days. And before we look down on them, we probably need to admit that this is far closer to our spiritual experience than we would like to admit.Exodus 15:22–27 (ESV)Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter. Therefore it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, What shall we drink. And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer. Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.Israel goes from worship to whining in record time. Just three days earlier they were singing about the power of God and the majesty of God and the salvation of God. Now the tune has changed. The first sign of trouble and suddenly they cannot see God anywhere. This shift is the heart of the passage. The question is not whether God saved them. They know He did. The question is whether they trust Him to sustain them.Notice the pattern. They walk into a place called Marah, which means bitter. They taste the water and find it undrinkable. Their immediate response is not prayer, not remembering the sea behind them, not recalling the song they just sang. Their response is grumbling. And this is exactly what happens to us. It is easy to sing when the seas part. It is far harder to trust when the desert is dry. The problem is not the water. The problem is the heart.Moses does what they should have done. He cries out to the Lord. And God answers in a way none of them expected. He shows Moses a log. Moses throws it into the water and it becomes sweet. The lesson is simple. God can turn bitterness into sweetness with a single act of His will. Yet we rarely give Him the chance. We panic before we pray. We grumble before we look up. We doubt before we remember.Then comes the real point of the episode. God tells them He is testing them. Not to make them fail, but to teach them something they cannot learn on the shoreline. At Marah God reveals Himself as their healer. Not just the healer of bodies but the healer of hearts. The healer of unbelief. The healer of people who know how to sing a song but do not yet know how to trust a promise.And just when they think life will always be bitter, God leads them to Elim. Twelve springs of water. Seventy palm trees. A picture of rest and refreshment. God is showing them a pattern. The wilderness will have both Marah and Elim. Bitter days and sweet days. Dry places and shaded places. Neither cancels the other. God is present in both.But Israel does what we often do. Elim is not enough to teach them gratitude. When the next pressure comes, the complaints start again. This time it is hunger. And their complaints get darker. They say it would have been better to die in Egypt. Better to be slaves with full stomachs than free people with empty ones. They twist the memory of Egypt into something it never was. Slavery becomes comfort in their imagination. Oppression becomes security. This happens to every Christian who forgets what God saved them from. If you forget the whip of Egypt, you will long for the food of Egypt.What Israel needs is not more water or more food. Those things matter, and God will provide both. But what they truly need is a different kind of nourishment. They need faith shaped by remembrance. They need to look back at the sea behind them and let it inform the desert in front of them. They need to remember that the God who brought them out will not abandon them now.This passage confronts us gently but honestly. How quickly do you forget what God has done. How often do you assume the worst when difficulty comes. How easily do you let present pressure rewrite past mercy. Israel is us. We are them. Our hearts are not naturally trusting. They need to be trained.Yet the hope in this passage is immense. God does not abandon His grumbling people. He does not turn away in disgust. He meets them in their need. He turns bitter water sweet. He ...