Exodus 16:3
“In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt. There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
God had brought the whole nation of Israel out of Egypt. The people had witnessed the plagues God brought against Pharoah, concluding with the death of all the firstborn, which they were spared by smearing the blood of a lamb on their doorposts. They had watched as the waters of the Red Sea stopped flowing, so they could cross over on dry land. They had watched the Egyptian army perishing as the seas returned upon them. They had travelled for three days without finding water. When they eventually came to water it was bitter, so they grumbled. Moses cried out to God, who told him to throw a stick into the water, and it became sweet.
In spite of all that God had done for them, the people were soon grumbling again, this time because they had no food. They looked back to Egypt and all the good food they ate there, but they forgot that Egypt was the place where they had been slaves, under harsh taskmasters. They had cried out to God for a long time to save them from their sufferings and He had worked miracles to save them. But still they grumbled, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt.” They conveniently forgot their suffering in Egypt. They failed to trust God to save them again and to provide for them, even in the desert.
What “If only’s” do we look back to? Maybe it’s something we wish we had said or done, or had not said or done. Or perhaps it’s a decision we made and we regret it now. How differently might things have turned out for us? To keep on rehearsing these “if only’s” in our minds is not good for our mental health. We’ll remain stuck in the past. We have to place them in the Lord’s hands and trust Him with the past, so that we can trust Him in the present and in the future.