Numbers 21:4-9

Why is it that God’s chosen people so often sound like God’s spoiled people? In today’s reading, the people freed from slavery in Egypt are complaining because they have fallen upon hard times as they enter into their Exodus experience. It would seem that bad food eaten as a free person would always taste better than good food eaten as an enslaved person. We long for the good old days even though we know they were not that good. God has made it very clear that it is up to us to fix what is wrong in our world. Fortunately, God no longer sends poisonous serpents every time we complain about what is wrong, although that would certainly teach us to curtail our complaining.