3.104 Don't Get Stuck in "It Would Have Been Better"

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as savory salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

You ever been stuck in that thought process where you go, "Ah, man, things would have been better if..." That's what we're going to take a look at today as we go through our readings, Exodus chapters 14 through 18. Welcome to the series of verses we're going to take a look at today. We're going to look at Exodus 14, verse 12, because a phrase in here caught my eye and I thought, "Where have I read that before?" Let's see if you catch it as well.

Verse 12 says this: "Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness." This is the children of Israel complaining to Moses as they're feeling trapped on the edge of the Red Sea and they're facing Pharaoh's chariots coming at them. Did you catch the phrase in there, "for it had been better for us"?

This is the Israelites in their moment of freedom turning to Moses and saying, "You know what, I choose slavery." I think slavery would have been better than our current conditions and circumstances. Where have you heard that phrase before? For me, as I looked into it, I was trying to figure out where it was, and I landed on 1 Nephi 17:20-21.

We are not going to read those because we are going to stick to our single verse for the day. But inside of there, if you go there, I want you to see the language that Laman and Lemuel... Sometimes we think back at days and we look back at them and say, "Oh, those were way better days!" I can tell you this: days in our past without the Lord will never be equal to or greater than days in our present and future with the Lord.

And I think this is a message that the Lord's going to show the children of Israel over and over again. I can remember a time on my mission serving in Mongolia. I was there fairly closely to the fall of communism across the USSR, and Mongolia had had a peaceful revolution, a peaceful separation of sorts from the Soviet Union at the time.

But communism was still very much in the hearts and minds of the people in terms of how they lived. And I can remember them several times I would get in in conversations with men that would say, "I don't understand this new concept of freedom and democracy because my life was better under communism." And they would talk about their structured, slave-type style lives and how it was better for them because it was predictable. It was safe.

It was comfortable. My friends, the comfort that sits in our lives can become slavery to us. It can hold onto us.

It can keep us comfortable and not wanting to move and grow. I'm grateful that the Lord was able to help the children of Israel to not just open the Red Sea, but to cross the Red Sea, to take those steps into freedom. They're going to have many more times where they're going to say, "Oh, it had been better for us if..." But I promise you, the Lord knows what is best for us.

And if we will lean into Him, we will find miracles in our lives. We will find the opportunities to be with the Lord are much greater than the opportunities of our comfort and security in the past. That's all for today, my friends.

You and I have come here for such a time as this. Step forward in faith, and let's be savory salt. We will be here tomorrow, and we hope you are too.