'Bye Felicia

In the 1990s cult flick Friday, Angela Means Kaaya plays Felicia, a strung out drug addict who portrayed the character so well many people actually thought she was one in real life - which is more opposite than her real-life return to the media as the mother of Miami Hurricanes quarterback Brad Kaaya. Everyone remembers "'Bye Felicia", as the saying has become a dismissive line when someone announces they are leaving and you can care less about where they go. Their real names become irrelevant as a result; it didn't exactly help her case that she was always dirty and begging living from one high to the next,

Among the Israelites, too many people listened to the complaints for such a long period they began to agree with them. Obviously this displeased God, and for very good reason. God had delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, agreed to live in their midst, and provided them with food and drink with nary a thank-you. Their appreciation? More whining, In their complaint, Israel forgot the manna was a gift from God's living hand (Numbers 11:6) and even had the audacity to create a golden calf to worship not unlike their onetime captors! Does this sound like anyone you know? Because complaining poisons the heart with ingratitude and can become a contagion, God had to judge it.

You know what happened next: A generation was told 'Bye Felicia. Moses led the people around in a circle for forty years until the last whiner perished before he and Joshua captained a younger set to the Promised Land.

Each day, let us avoid being dismissed like Felicia by remaining faithful and grateful of what God has offered.