Exodus 15:22-27
Blessings from Difficulties

Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.) So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?"

Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

There the LORD made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you."

Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

New International Version

The old saying instructs us, "you win some, and you lose some." When we face defeat, we want to hold on to the promise that victory will be coming. The Hebrew people had just experienced the victory at the Red Sea, so they might have faced the first day of desert travel without finding water with a positive attitude, confident in what God had just done. As time wore on, though, the situation became more serious as they began to exhaust the water supplies they had packed. Many of them might have resigned themselves to taking the bad with the good, trusting that good would come again.

Then, finally, water! They arrive at what likely was an oasis, just to find the water was so bitter they couldn't drink it. Maybe they named this place Marah, literally "bitterness", or maybe some frustrated traveler before them left that name as a warning to all who would follow.

Times like this support the pessimistic saying that "life isn't fair." The people reacted in frustration, in anxiety, and even in despair. How cruel to be that thirsty, just to find water they couldn't drink! How ironic that their enemy was destroyed in the Red Sea, just for them to die of thirst at the waters of Marah.

And God provided the answer in... a log. Moses obeyed God's improbable response to their prayers, and hurled the log into the water. Instantly, the water tasted sweet enough for all the people and animals to drink their fill. Once again, God provided a miracle that sustained God's followers.

Just in case they missed this object lesson, or we misunderstand the story, God spelled it out for us. First, God requires obedient faith. If God leads us three days through the desert (and who doesn't know that feeling!), God has a plan to sustain us and bless us. If God leads us to a difficult circumstance, like bitter water, God expects us to look in faith for what God will do, not look in despair at the situation. God will provide!

Second, God is a God of both justice and mercy. The Hebrew people so far had seen God's wrath against the Egyptians in the plagues and in the destruction of Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. They needed to be taught that the same God is a God of blessings, providing a dry pathway through the sea and a miracle of sweet water at Marah. To emphasize this part of the lesson, their next stop, Elim, had an abundance of water and an opulent glade of palm trees. God is eager to bless those who demonstrate faithful obedience.

Strangely enough, the greatest blessings we receive from God often aren't in the luxuries of Elim, but in the desert of Shur and at Marah's bitter springs. We grow stronger in our faith and closer to God by relying on God for direction, for solace, for every need that we have. We find it easier to recognize the miracle of God's blessings when those blessings can't possibly have come from circumstances.

But God's intention is not to leave us in the desert, but, like the children of Israel, to take us to the Promised Land. God is training us to develop a strong faith, to rely on God for all our needs, and to love God with all that we are, no matter whether we are in desperate circumstances at Marah or in the bounteous beauty of Elim. Paul expressed this goal succinctly and elegantly in Philippians 4, "In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being well-fed and going hungry, of having plenty and being in need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."