What Is It Again?

Is it me, or are things just hard right now? My prayer list keeps getting longer and longer, and I’m not just praying for someone’s kid to make the baseball team. Not that things like that are not important, because they are; however, I’m talking about serious, life-threatening illnesses and heartbreaking situations. Everywhere you turn, there is someone in need.

I think that these are the times when Satan does his best work. He pushes and prods us whispering lies that God must not care, or this would not have happened. He insinuates that God is too busy to be bothered with our problems and chuckles that we aren’t even a blip on God’s celestial radar.

We then suddenly find ourselves with a scarcity mindset – a fear of not having enough. Instead of God, we start listening to the supposed “experts” in the world who tell us that our resources are dwindling, and we panic. We think, “Oh my gosh, what if they are right!” And we all know what that leads to because we experienced it during COVID. Oh yes, I’m talking about hoarding to protect what we have. I ask you, how many roles of toilet paper does a person really need?

I get why the world feels this way. I would too if I thought this life was all there was, but I look around me and I feel that this mindset is epidemic among believers too. People are living in fear even though they belong to the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10). They are doubting God’s goodness and that he will always provide, which is exactly Satan’s end game.

But what if we stopped giving the devil a foothold? Friends, there is no reason to live in fear of not having enough, because God has not forgotten the recipe for manna.

Let me repeat that, God has not forgotten the recipe.

Annie F. Downs made that comment on 59 Seconds of Faith on Air1 Radio. You remember manna; it was the food God provided for his people while they were in the wilderness for forty years:

“That evening vast numbers of quail flew in and covered the camp. And the next morning the area around the camp was wet with dew. When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground. The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. “What is it?” they asked each other. They had no idea what it was.” (Exodus 16:13-15)

Manna is literally the Hebrew word for “what is it”. Personally, I’ve always thought of it as Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, but that’s just my odd imagination. However, did you know that God provided manna in response to Israel grumbling:

“If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.” (Exodus 16:3)

It seems the people were suffering from a little selective memory. They remembered having food in Egypt, but they failed to recall the part of their being in bondage to their masters, the beatings, and the misery of their forced labor (Exodus 1:11-14).

They did not yet know this God who had rescued them. They had grown up as slaves with their own scarcity mentality, and when their stomachs growled, they immediately concluded that he would not meet their needs. They had much to learn; therefore, God said:

“I have heard the Israelites’ complaints. Now tell them, ‘In the evening you will have meat to eat, and in the morning you will have all the bread you want. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’” (Exodus 16:11-12)

And God did. There was never a day that he forgot them; never a time when they went without. God even reminded the people of this when they were preparing to enter the Promised Land: “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet.” (Deuteronomy 29:5)

God always provides, and his character never changes like shifting shadows (James 1:17). Therefore, the logical conclusion we should come to is that God still remembers the recipe for manna.

Yet we doubt!

We think that was then, and this is now. There is no more manna to be found, and we are on our own. Like the children of Israel, we grumble as to why things happened, and we feel that God has let us down.

But he hasn’t.

Think about it this way; unlike the Israelites in the wilderness, who had to grab their buckets six days a week and gather enough flakes for the family, we have something so much better. We have Christ! He is the fullness of God’s recipe for manna. In fact, Jesus even compares himself to manna.

“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:48-51)

Christ is the true living bread. He came down from heaven to satisfy our spiritual needs, and through him, we can have a life of abundance. A life of freedom. A life of meaning. An eternal life, but I know what you are thinking: “That’s great, Lisa, but what about our ever-growing prayer requests. Why are there so many in need if there is all this abundance?”

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but like Job, we have to trust that God can do all things (Job 42:2). When the hard times come, and believe they will, we must remember who Jesus is.

He is ….

• The bread of life (John 6:35)

• The light of the world (John 8:12)

• The gate for the sheep (John 10:7)

• The good shepherd (John 10:11)

• The resurrection and the life (John 11:25)

• The way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6)

• The true vine (John 15:1)

He is enough. He is our manna

Thank you, Father, for not forgetting the recipe!

Amen and so be it!  Lisa

Discussion Questions

In what ways are you grumbling against God in your life right now, and how can you change your attitude?

How does God respond to the grumbling and complaints of the Israelites? What does this teach us about God's nature?

Why is it difficult for people to accept Jesus as their source of life?