In the 1999 movie, The Matrix, Earth is not a friendly place for humans. Robots have taken over and humans are nothing more than batteries, living in a false virtual reality (known as “The Matrix”) designed simply to maximize “battery life.”
But a few humans have broken free, and the movie tells of their struggle against the machines. They see things as they really are, and choose a bleak, nearly hopeless struggle for freedom over a relatively comfortable existence as a battery.
The choice is not a one-time thing, though. One of those freed, named Cypher, decides he’s had enough and turns traitor. “Ignorance is bliss,” he says in negotiating his return to the Matrix.
This is the scene I think of when I read Exodus 15-16. The Israelites have seen the plagues, they have walked through the parted waters of the Red Sea, they’ve followed the giant pillar of fire and cloud. More than anyone since Noah, they’ve experienced God’s power and deliverance. Yet over the next days and months, despite God’s continued providence, the Israelites seem incapable of trusting God, even to the point where they describe slavery as “the good old days.”
“They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” – Exodus 16:1-3
I read this and want to scream. YOU WERE SLAVES!! Why in the world would you think those days were good (they weren’t!) and how do you forget God’s incredibly obvious faithfulness? After all, THE GIANT PILLAR OF FIRE IS RIGHT OVER THERE!
And then I’m convicted. Hello, Pot – this is Kettle. You’re black.
I do the same thing Cypher did, and I’ve had the same faithless attitude that the Israelites did. Like the Israelites, as soon as I’m taken out past my comfort zone, I immediately assume God is going to let me down, that He’s abandoned me. Just like Cypher, I am guilty of wishing for a return to the Matrix, buying into the lie that stable, predictable times without God are better than the unknown with Him.
This is idolatry. This is slavery. This is selling out the indescribable hope and freedom and purpose that Christ offers, and instead exchanging it for comfort and stability. And we do it all the time.
When God leads you out into the desert, far beyond the point where your own resources can sustain you, out where it’s scary and lonely… how do you respond? When the “worst-case scenario” honestly seems pretty likely… how do your conversations with God go?
The sovereign God of the universe loves you. Remember that – it frames everything else. While He never promised us an easy road – those roads stopped at the edge of Eden, after all – He has promised never to leave us. Like the Israelites, He still leads us out to places where we have no choice but to trust Him.
Are you there now?
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