Eat and Repeat
We have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!
Numbers 11:6
When Kerry and Paul got married, neither one knew how to cook. But one night Kerry decided to try her hand at spaghetti—making so much that the couple had it for dinner again the next day. On the third day, Paul volunteered to cook, doubling the amount of pasta and sauce, hoping the huge pot would last through the weekend. As the couple sat down for dinner that night, however, it was Kerry who confessed, “I’m sick of spaghetti.”
Just imagine eating the same meal as the Israelites did—for forty years. Each morning they gathered the sweet “super food” God supplied and cooked it (no leftovers unless the next day was the Sabbath, Exodus 16:23-26). Sure, they got creative—baking it, boiling it (v. 23). But, oh, how they missed the good food they had enjoyed in Egypt (v. 3; Numbers 11:1-9), even though that nourishment had come at the high cost of cruelty and enslavement!
We too may sometimes resent that our life isn’t what it once was. Or perhaps the “sameness” of life has caused us to be discontent. But Exodus 16 tells of God’s faithful provision to the Israelites, causing them to trust and depend on His care each day.
God promises to give us everything we need. He satisfies our longings and fills up our soul with “good things” (Psalm 107:9 esv).
By Cindy Hess Kasper
REFLECT & PRAY
Father, thank You for Your promise to faithfully care for me and provide what I need.
In what ways has God provided for you in the past? What longing is keeping you from trusting Him more?
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SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
The Hebrew word for manna means “what is it?” Manna looked like white flakes of frost on the ground and tasted “like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:14, 31). The poetic language of Psalm 78:24 tells us, “[God] rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven.” This image of manna as bread is picked up in the New Testament. In John 6, the people said it was “bread from heaven” (v. 31), then Jesus lifted this bread up to its highest level as a picture of Himself (vv. 32-33)! Christ called Himself “the bread that came down from heaven” (v. 41). Jesus said, “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” (vv. 49-50). Bill Crowder
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