Exodus 15:22–27

I have heard often about the murmuring of the children of Israel, about how they were constantly murmuring and how they should have just stopped complaining and acted faithfully and submitted to all the will of the Lord. Well, after re-reading some of the trials they went through, I am beginning to sympathize with them a lot more. For example, after the great deliverance from the Egyptians by going through the Red Sea on dry ground and seeing Pharaoh's armies destroyed right behind them, they then had to endure this:

22 So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.
23 ¶And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah.

So, after that hair-raising experience with the Egyptian armies, the children of Israel, yes, that would be men, women, and children, had to trudge through the desert for three days with no water and I'm assuming very little food as well. People start dying after three days of no water! Who wouldn't have begun to murmur having to watch their wives and children suffer and starve and thirst to the point of death? And then on top of all that, how would it feel to finally get to a spring only to find that it is bitter and undrinkable? Sounds to me like it would be the straw that broke the camel's back. It was only after all this that the children of Israel did what they are so (in)famous for:

24 And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?

I want to be more kind to the children of Israel now. The afflictions they went through were truly severe and abjectly humbling. I surely would have cast my voice in with the murmurers, and much worse. Ya, me, I'm the guy who has a hard time fasting once a month for two meals. I don't want to think about the state I'd be in after three days of such suffering.

Perhaps we can learn to be more wise then our ancient ancestors in this one sense: what if the children of Israel had spent those three days fervently and constantly praying to the Lord for a source of water? What if they would have gone to Moses in faith, though in their extremity, and given thanks to Moses and to God for their deliverance, and humbly entreated him to supplicate the Lord and offered their whole souls and strength in helping to solve the vexing problem of finding water? Perhaps all they needed was a slight attitude adjustment and then maybe it would have been said of them not that they murmured against Moses, but that they only entreated him for the sake of their starving families or something like that. We know from the scriptures that gratitude can bring miracles. The Lord Himself gave thanks for a few meager fishes and loaves of bread that had been brought, and a miracle occurred in which many thousands of hungry people were fed by the same.