January 23, 2018 Bible Study– Lack of Gratitude and a Lesson On Leadership

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Exodus 16-18.

    At the beginning of today’s passage the people of Israel demonstrated an all too human failing. Rather than ask God for food and then later water, they complained about the lack. Rather than trust that the God who had miraculously brought them out of Egypt could provide their needs, they complained and regretted leaving Egypt in the first place. We all have a tendency to do such things, to have a “What have you done for me lately?” attitude. The people of Israel stopped being grateful for what God had done for them and began to resent Him for the troubles they now faced. Let us strive not to fall into the same error.

    I would ordinarily skip over this because I have talked about it just about every year when I have read this passage. However, I think the advice which Moses’ father-in-law gave him is important enough to be emphasized. When Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, arrived to visit, he witnessed Moses spend the entire day, from sunup to sundown, settling the disputes among the people. Jethro told Moses that he could not keep on doing this. He told him that he needed to delegate some of his authority to other people. Every leader of a group of more than five people needs to follow this advice to delegate some of the tasks of running the group to others. Even if the group is less than five, delegating some of the tasks is a good idea.