Yesterday's Manna

As I was contemplating how we are sustained by God, and how He nourishes us spiritually, I couldn’t help but remember the story of Exodus 16. As seems to always be the case in Exodus, the Israelites are groaning. I say this in no way to mean that I am better; I groan plenty, it’s just that no one has written a book about me doing it yet.

In this particular instance, the people are groaning because they need food. Not a bad reason to groan, if you have none. So, God provided for them, as He always did. He rained down a delicious meal from heaven, an unknown food that tasted like wafers made with honey (possibly Honeycomb breakfast cereal). They could it “manna.”

God gave some specific instructions along with this blessing, however. He told them to gather only what they needed, but to gather double on the day before the Sabbath, and to eat those leftovers on the Sabbath.

Of course, the Hebrews neglected these commands. Not only did they try to gather manna on the Sabbath, but they also tried to gather extra manna on other days. And, as is usually the case when one disobeys God’s instructions, the consequences were eminent.

During the night this sweet pastry attracted and bred worms, turning sour and creating a tremendous odor (the manufacturers of Honeycomb avoided this with the invention of the artificial preservatives we all love so much).

Nonetheless, I believe there is an important lesson to learn from this story. So often we look back on our past spirituality, or even the spirituality of our family, and we become satisfied with it. We come to rely on it. We believe what we have done in the past is enough, if we could just sustain it or replicate it. We try to survive on the manna we gathered yesterday. But there was a reason God told the Israelites to gather their nourishment everyday.

God wants us to continually be relying on Him. He wants us to always be searching for some new revelation. Simply reviewing what we have done or learned cannot be enough. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he writes in chapter thirteen, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”

The bitter truth is, there are many among us who simply need to grow up. We have become satisfied with what we have accomplished, with what we know; and all the while there is so much more to behold. There is so much more to the glory of God than we have seen. There is so much more to His provision, to His power. And we are content to stagnate and breed worms. We need to quit fiddling around with yesterday’s manna. Go and see what God has sent from heaven today.

Food we Do Not Know

How often do we skip a meal? I know I don’t very often. We like food, and we don’t like being hungry. But I was wondering the other day, “Why don’t we hunger for God that way?” After all, we need God even more than we need food; He is the source of our strength and nourishment. Why do we ignore Him in a way we would never ignore our hunger pangs?

In John chapter four, Jesus’ disciples were taking care of their grocery shopping in a Samaritan village while Jesus waiting at the local watering hole. That’s where the Savior had an encounter with a Samaritan woman and confronted her misconceptions about worship and life. But after His conversation with the woman, His disciples tried to get Him to eat something. Jesus replied, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.” The disciples question among themselves, wondering where He got the food. He answered them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.”

I really believe that Jesus had a hunger inside Him. I believe that if He ever went very long without touching someone for His Father, He was filled with pangs like if we had not eaten. And when He fulfilled a task that His Father had given to Him, He felt a satisfaction better than any we could know from the biggest meal.

So why do we not take advantage of this food we do not know? Why do we neglect the one thing that can nourish us, strengthen us, and satisfy us like nothing else can? Why do we not hunger to serve the One who sent us?

Lord, fill us with desire for Your food.

The Most Noble Contradiction

There were many contradictions at the cross. Everything about it went against the nature of God. The One who knew no sin was made to be sin. The True Light that had come into the world was shrouded in darkness. The Life was crucified. The Three-in-One God was divided, separated for the first and only time.

But these kinds of contradictions are what makes the cross so powerful. No other life could have, by its death, given life to the world. Only a sinless sacrifice could wipe out the debt of sin. These contradictions were a part of the plan all along, and they were nothing new in the life of Christ.

The very act of Jesus being born was a contradiction. His very nature, wholly God and wholly man, is a seeming paradox that we cannot fully understand. But perhaps the greatest contradiction is explained in the opening chapter of John’s Gospel. John says that Jesus came “full of grace and truth.”

The grace of God is His lovingkindness toward us, His mercy, the way He puts up with us when we fail. The truth of God is His unchanging faithfulness, His immutability, His uncompromising justice. His grace is what makes Him want to bring us to Himself. His truth is what keeps Him from welcoming sinners. The two thoughts are perpendicular. It does not seem like they should exist in one God. But the contradiction is not because the two are mutually exclusive; it is because our sin is in conflict with both.

That is why the contradiction of the cross was necessary. That is where the grace of God and the truth of God met. That is where they worked together to rid the world of the sin that had placed them at odd. That is where Christ became, as it says in Romans 3, “both just and the justifier.” The contradiction of the cross is where God rejected His own nature because of His deep love for us. He gave up so much of Himself so that His real self could be revealed to us, so that we could know Him.

It is a mystery too great for words. It is the most noble contradiction.