I don't know how often I've heard the story of the children of Israel and God's provision of manna for them. I do know, that a time has not passed that I have not marveled at the ingratitude of the recipients of God's provision. How dare they grumble and complain when God is sustaining them in the absence of food. How dare they murmur when they had enough to eat?
It's easy to hold that perspective from position of plenty. Easy to say, "I would have been grateful, I would have been satisfied and given thanks." It's amazing how one's perspective changes when the shoe is put on the other foot. When one is asked to walk in the shoes they walked in.
Numbers 11:4-6 "The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost - also the cucumber, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"
I'm sick of manna ... well not sick of manna ... I want more than manna. I want fish! I want melons, onions and garlic! I want what I was once blessed with but now only have memories of! I want the bounty of the promised land with grapes and milk and honey! I want the feast that God promises to prepare before me in the presence of my enemies. I don't want to survive on just manna.
Does that make me selfish? Does that make me ungrateful? Does that show a lack of faith, a lack of trust in God? Possibly ... probably ... likely. I marvel at the faith of Abraham and others who's faith is recorded in Hebrews 11, many of whom died waiting to see the fulfillment of the promises they waited for without losing hope. I marvel because I cannot begin to fathom the depth of their hope in the promises of the Almighty.
Today the shoe is on the other foot. Today it is not the children of Israel who are being sustained with manna, today it is I. Lord you know the bounty I long for. You know the promises I wait to see. Keep me faithful I pray. Forgive me when I murmur, Lord. Continue to nourish and sustain me with your manna, even when I grow impatient and long for yesterday or tomorrow. Help me to remember that yesterday was not what tomorrow will be and to reach tomorrow I must pass through today!
1 comment:
This chapter challenged & comforted me lately - we will not receive all we are promised, long for, hope for here on earth... Keep the faith, Clinton! From Hebrews 11: "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.... All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. "
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