My children used to love watching a Disney cartoon movie called “Mickey and the Beanstalk.” It was a takeoff on the classic story of Jack and the Beanstalk. In the movie, a famine has devastated the land and Mickey, Donald and Goofy have no more food. While Mickey is out selling their only cow in an attempt to bring home dinner, Goofy and Donald in their anticipation and craving for what will come sing, “Turkey, lobster, sweet potato pie. Pancakes piled up until they reach the sky. Ooooohhh, I wanna eat and eat and eat and eat and eat until I die.” And they are devastated when Mickey comes home, not with food, but with magic beans.
The reading in Numbers 11 reminded me of the song Donald and Goofy sang… “I wanna eat and eat and eat and eat and eat until I die.” Or perhaps if your more of a Rolling Stones fan than a Disney fan, you’ll remember the words of a different Mick(ey); Mick Jagger: “I can’t get no satisfaction, no, no no.” Those two songs sure seem to describe the people of God in the desert. They are a mess of murmuring and whining and back-biting and craving. Remember, they have JUST departed Sinai where God gave them the law and the tabernacle. The journey had JUST begun to the Promised Land. They boldly declared to the outsider Hobab the Midianite, “We are setting out for the place about which the Lord said, ‘I will give it to you.’ Come with us and we will treat you well, for the Lord has promised good things to Israel,” (Num 10:29). And within a short space, they “complained about their hardships,” (Num 11:1) and, “the rabble with them began to crave other food,” (Num 11:4). Manna (God’s good provision) was not enough. They wanted what they used to have in Egypt (where they were slaves!). Clearly there is something powerful within us related to craving and food is one of the primary things for which we crave. Remember that the first temptation and sin (to be like God knowing good and evil) used food as the enticement (pleasing to the eye and good for eating). A good thing corrupted… such is the nature of sin.
We must understand that God’s intention was that he would be the one to fulfill us. He would be the one to provide for us. He would be the one to whom we look to fill all our needs. As Lysa Terkeurst writes in her book Made to Crave, “God made us capable of craving so we’d have an unquenchable desire for more of Him, and Him alone. Nothing changes until we make the choice to redirect our misguided cravings to the only one capable of satisfying them.” As with the people of Israel in the desert, so also with us. Unless we go to God to satisfy our cravings; death in its many forms (whether slow or abrupt) will result. How do we do this? Begin by taking our cue from Jesus. Remember Jesus when later dealing with satan’s attack in the wilderness would quote Deuteronomy 8:3 as his defense from temptation, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” (Matthew 4:4). We begin to recognize that craving is a signal within us that we need Jesus. We ask Him to satisfy us. We learn how to feast on his word. We increasingly live from a place of spiritual fullness rather than spiritual malnourishment. Ultimately, we live dependent upon him.
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