Numbers 11 vs. 6 (KJV)
But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.
The Israelites had a lot to be happy about; they had been delivered from 400 years of slavery; they watched the Red Sea open to allow them to cross to the other side. They saw the wheels come off the chariots of their pursuers. They saw their enemies covered up by that same sea. They drank water that poured out of a rock and led by a pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day.
Their happiness was consumed and plundered because they did not like the taste of God’s food. While hindsight is 20/20, and you can see the foolishness of their complaint, are you blind to your feebleness in this area? Do you focus more on the negative than the positive? Do you sit before a beautiful meal and complain that it’s ruined because they forgot to put the butter on the table? Did you know that living a life filled with the negativity of complaints is terrible for your physical and mental health?
Physical Health Effects
When you allow yourself to be overtaken by negativity, a chemical called cortisol is released, this is a stress hormone, that weakens your immune system, increases your blood pressure, weight, memory loss, the risk of diabetes, and heart disease, it can even affect your learning.
Mental Health Effects
Did you know that thoughts can become habits? When you continue to focus on the same thought pattern of negativity, the synapses in your brain begin to move closer to each other to decrease the amount of distance that the electrical charge will have to cross, which guarantees that the proper synapse will trigger the negative thought.
The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness, even though the journey from Egypt to the Canaan land should have taken about two weeks. Is it possible that you are wandering around in the desert of negativity? Have you lost precious time, circling the same mountain year after year? Are there places you could have been, and things you could have accomplished if you were just willing to change your attitude? May you see and embrace all the right things around you, it could just be the pathway out of a wilderness of your own making.
