Ever drive in St. John’s - it can be confusing - on a map, I took a one way street and, well the people of St. John’s do not know anything - they were driving the wrong way - honking their horns at me - even those people who had parked their cars had parked them the wrong way....

It is hard to admit that we might be wrong on times - and it is so easy to blame another. Sometimes, it is so easy to forget the many blessings that we have as well. Our Journeying in the Bible continues today as we share the ongoing pilgrimage of the Israelites from Egypt to a Promised Land. These people who endured slavery and who were now free, came upon a testing or a challenge. Now, keep in mind that the people had passed safely through some challenges - they had seen God’s Presence at work in them and they had persevered through the challenge.

In this challenge, the people were thirsty - they were in the wilderness and they were not finding any water. The people did not form a committee to try to find water - they did not go to Moses and say - WHAT CAN WE DO - or WHAT DO YOU THINK THE LORD requires of us......no, they came to Moses and they complained....the people ever accused Moses of bringing the people out of Egypt to kill or harm them. Moses even was worried about being stoned to death by the people. How many times did this happen or the threat of it occur. The stoned Paul, but he survived, they stoned Stephen and he died, they attempted to even stone Christ. And we still do this to our leaders - not physically, but by our mouths.....how quick are we to complain instead of pass a compliment - how quick to cast a judging eye instead of a encouraging smile. We do it to our politicians, our clergy, our teachers at times- anyone who is entrusted with authority, we sometimes blame them first before we think about how a situation before us can be an opportunity to share the faith or how we have contributed to it. My dear grandmother Matthews, she was a woman with lots of sayings, but one I can recall very vividly, mainly because she was always reminding me of it, was this saying - IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING GOOD TO SAY, THEN DO NOT SAY ANYTHING AT ALL.

IN your own head and heart, ask yourself - do I complain more than I compliment another - do my words hurt more often than heal - also say to yourself - I can make a positive difference. Can I take the moments of my desert or wilderness experience and instead of complaining about them always or blaming another, try a new way of life giving action.

The people of Israel blamed Moses instead of trusting in God. The people’s faith petered out instead of persevering. And when the people of Israel complained, Moses took the elders to a place called Massah and Meribah and struck the rock with his staff and the water flowed from the ground.....and the elders were no doubt surprised and joyful, and they had learned to trusted God a little more. The event of what had happened would now be in the elders and the people of Israel’s memory.

Bob Holloway wrote: The habit of complaining is one that characterizes our lives as much as it did the lives of the Hebrews. It is so much easier to diagnose the faults of others than it is to admit to either our feelings of being helpless or our own role in the creation of our circumstances. But there is another way. There is the way of deciding not to be helpless, not because of our own confidence in our own selves, but because of what our memory teaches us. We can take the way of deciding to walk and act in faith and trust in God. Those choices help us to discover that the wilderness in not our destination, only the place we must pass through.

Whether it is because we have taken the wrong turn and we are going the wrong way on a one way street or because we have decided to complain and think that we are forgotten, we can turn around - we can have God with us.

License - God is my co-pilot - I ask you to think about letting God be in control - let yourself surrender some of those bad habits and instead, focus on God - hear God’s word and promise of presence and then, with God to persevere in your living faithful - lovingly. There are many ways we can live out lives, but only one way that is truly life giving and that is living with perseverance knowing the presence of our God.