Bible Stories for the Young
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Do you remember the people who were not children of Israel, but who wanted to leave with them when they left Egypt?
These people started fussing about the manna along the way. They said, “We never get to eat all the tasty food that we had in Egypt anymore. We want to dig our teeth into some meat. We’re tired of only eating manna all the time.”
The Bible says they “lusted” for it. This means that they didn’t just kinda wish they had some meat to eat, but they really craved, craved, craved it. They let their minds think about it all the time. They let their mouths talk about it all the time. So their cravings grew and grew into gimme, gimme, gimme.
The more these people from Egypt talked about their cravings for meat, the more God’s children started thinking about meat, too. And then, like they did so many times, they started to whine, cry, panic, and pout “gimme, gimme, gimme,” too.
This wasn’t hunger. It was opinion and complaining. “I want this thing, not that thing.”
The Bible says they were actually weeping about it. There was nothing to cry about. They weren’t starving or even hungry. They were just being picky. They wanted a food different than the one they were given. They were greedy for “more” and “different,” instead of being happy with what God had given them. That’s very ungrateful for what God had already given.
As you might imagine, God was mad about it… and Moses was mad about it, too.
But God had a solution to the problem.
“Fine,” God said, “I’ll give you meat, and you will eat it! Not one day, not two days, not five days, not ten days, not twenty days, but for thirty days — for a whole month! You will eat it until it comes out of your nose, because you have despised Me and all I have done for you.”
Moses said, “How could there be enough meat for millions of people to eat for an entire month?”
God was a little surprised at Moses’ doubt and said, “What? You think My arm got shorter all of a sudden?”
Sure enough… The next day God caused a wind to blow from the sea. The wind blew tons and tons of quail (that’s a bird kind of like a flying chicken) over to the camp. Then thud, thud, thud — the birds fell to the ground in piles taller than some of you. In every direction! That’s a lot of birds!
The people rushed over to the birds to chomp, chomp, chomp them! But before the people could even get their teeth in the meat, God sent a sickness and the people who had given in to those crave, crave, cravings… died.
So they named that place “The Graves of Cravings” or “The Graves of the Greedy.”
As you can see, there’s no reward for complaining or being picky about what food is on your plate or about what you are going to do next. You’re more likely to end up with nothing if you have an attitude like that! Just be grateful!
Bury your cravings, so that those cravings don’t bury you.
