They soon forgat His works; they waited not for His counsel:
But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert.
And He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. Psalm 106:13-15
The Israelites are examples of who not to follow in the word of God.
They disappointed God over and over again.
One reason God focuses on them is so we can see what not to do
when they are failing and what to do when they are pleasing God.
Although it is not quite that easy.
Some of the purpose of focusing on them is
because many humans do the same things the Israelites did, so-to-speak.
Maybe people even do similar things they did back then.
Maybe some who are reading this or even writing this.
When God sent them meat, He had given them what they wanted.
It was sort of a sarcastic act of God.
I find that God does not get annoyed when people share their thoughts with Him.
He was most exasperated with the Israelites when they blamed Him
or forgot what miraculous works He had done and stopped being respectful to Him.
The Israelites did have it rough.
They left the land of Egypt and were carried into the desert,
without many of their luxuries.
They were used to, the food they loved
and the world they had become accustomed to.
They told God all about it and not in a good way.
There was little to no humility.
They did not seem to recognize their own lasciviousness.
Their focus was offensive to God.
Their focus was not on God much of the time.
God gave them what they wanted but sent leanness to their soul.
That sounds terrible.
God was also disappointed when the Israelites wanted a human king.
So, He gave them King Saul.
Just because God gives us what we want sometimes,
that does not mean it is His best for us.
All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient:
all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. 1 Corinthians 10:23
We cannot lose our first love in our efforts to seek the good things of this world.
That would be a big fail.
Jesus is teaching us and if we put aside the fear of God and humility,
we might as well have jumped off a cliff.
We are going nowhere without reverence and honoring Jesus.
We all have to decide if we want to serve God or ourselves or something else.
Sometimes He lets people have what they want
and sometimes people learn from that and sometimes they don’t.
My thought is not to lose our first love even for a moment.
We might not get it back. Always choose Jesus and repent when you don’t.
Is that too much? Remember Lot’s wife. Luke 17:32
Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent,
and do the first works;
or else I will come unto thee quickly,
and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. Revelation 2:4-5