Even if you didn’t grow up in a Christian household, it’s highly likely that at some point in your upbringing, a parental figure warned you about the dangers of having bad influences in your life. Whether it was the old maxims like “bad company corrupts good character” or “a bad apple spoils the barrel,” we all were warned of the danger of others having an influence on our lives.

The problem is I’m unsure how often we listened to the advice. Ok, I’m unsure of how often you listened to the advice, but I’m completely sure of how often I listened to the advice – NEVER. I guess when we were younger, we felt we knew best and that our parents and/or guardians were out of touch. We also felt invincible and in control of our own destiny – we would allow no one to have a say in our future, right? No one can influence us!! I realise that not a lot has changed as we grow into adults. We tend to have a fairly undeveloped ability to detect changes in our own behaviour while retaining an overdeveloped ability to detect those same changes in others.

Throughout the Bible, we see God talk to His people a lot about the dangers of outside influences. In the Old Testament, His people, Israel, were a newly formed group in many respects. They were only getting to grips with being their own people with their own God after years of being enslaved in another nation. The reason God formed them as His own people within the world He had created was that He saw how the other nations were behaving, and He wanted a nation that would thrive under His rule and reign. He knew the dangers they would face if they embraced the mindsets of the other cultures. As they traveled, lived, and then became enslaved as a people in Egypt, it is clear that they became exposed to not just the Egyptian culture but also other nations as Egypt was a place where many others would have ended up. God seeks to rescue them from that enslaved context. In the book of Exodus, when God rescues the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt, we are told that a number of these other people joined the Israelites in their journey to their new land. Exodus 12 tells us that a “mixed multitude” came out of Egypt with them. We aren’t told exactly where they were from, but there may have been other slaves from Canaan, Libya, and Cush, as well as Egyptians who either had intermarried with the Israelites or became curious about the God who had carried out the various plagues that had been experienced in Egypt. At the time, we hear no mention of God preventing these nations from coming with them, although we do hear that there would be restrictions on any non-Israelites when it came to Passover and other religious festivals.

Anyway, let’s fast forward a bit.

There comes a time when the people are in the wilderness where they start to complain to Moses about the lack of meat they have. This was after they had spent time in Sinai, where they had received the 10 Commandments and seen God’s power in miraculous ways. Sinai was also where they had been disobedient to God through the construction of a golden calf. The moment that they complain to Moses about their lack of meat is a significant moment in the journey of the people, as in their complaint they begin to crave Egypt. Their complaints seem to have corrupted their memories, and we are told that they conveniently forget about their slavery. They begin to salivate for cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. They talk about pots of meat that existed in Egypt. I like my meat as much as the next person, but I think my freedom is worth more than a steak.

Anyway, this is a story that I have read many times, I know it well. I also know that God brings them meat and more meat than they need. However, today as i read the passage I noticed something that I have never seen before. I have underlined my discovery below in the verse found in the book of Numbers. This is where we first hear of their complaint and this is taken from the Message translation;

The riff-raff among the people had a craving and soon they had the People of Israel whining, “Why can’t we have meat? We ate fish in Egypt—and got it free!—to say nothing of the cucumbers and melons, the leeks and onions and garlic. But nothing tastes good out here; all we get is manna, manna, manna.” Numbers 11:4-6

For the first time I realised that this whole moment was not initiated by the Israelites but by the riff-raff that was among them i.e. the people that came up from Egypt with them that were not Israelites. It seems like these people who were used to a different culture and weren’t committed to Yahweh in the same way the Israelites were gave into their craving and their familiarity with other delicacies. Now, that doesn’t mean that the Israelites were blameless in this moment – far from it. We are told in the next verse that they began to wail as they thought about the lack of meat too. It’s a clear moment where an outside influence infiltrates and becomes someone’s heart cry. It wasn’t the first time it happened to the Israelites and it certainly wouldn’t be the last time it happened to them.

It’s sad to watch how this influenced them but it’s even more convicting when I think about myself and how I have allowed outside influences to affect me. Just like the Israelites I am someone who was born into a place at a time but because I have given my life to God I am no longer identified as someone who was born at a certain place or time. My spiritual passport has heaven as my nationality, I am now a citizen there, even though I live here. If you are a follower of Jesus you will be able to testify to how tricky that is. So much of the Kingdom of earth feels so natural to me and I feel like I am always learning how to live as a citizen of heaven. I find it so tricky to live in the world without allowing the world to live in me. It’s so important that we take stock of what we are allowing to influence us. Here are a few questions that might help;

• Are there any areas where our behaviours or attitudes have changed over the past year?
• Where have we seen our attitudes and/or behaviours change?
• Have we taken time to think through why those things have changed?
• Was it an internal change or an external change?
• How do these changes line up with the Scripture?
• What do other longer trusted friends/mentors in our lives think about those changes?

Let’s not allow riff-raff in our lives to prevent us from moving into all that God has for us!