Manna Faith

A lot of times we hear people say cliches like…

“Have faith!”

“Just trust Him.”

“God will see you through, hold on!”

Awesome advises. They really are.  But I am here to tell you the hard truth: THERE REALLY IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO.

Often times we say Christianity is a walk, a journey, a struggle, among other things that involve us doing something. Yes, that’s totally true. James does say: “Faith without works is dead.” But the amazing thing about the whole story of grace? Is that it really pertains to, GRACE — UNDESERVED FAVOR.

I am here to tell you, that walking with God is actually more like being carried by Him.

Take this passage for example,

Then Moses told them, “Do not keep any of it until morning.”

Exodus 16:19

As someone who basically grew up in the church, that’s all I need to hear to know that the sentence is from Exodus and is referring to when God provided heavenly bread (manna) to the starving Israelites traveling in the desert.

The people were hungry, God sent them manna. BUT there was a catch — they can only gather enough for the day. No need to store for tomorrow because God will give them what they need for tomorrow tomorrow.

Simple enough instructions right? Especially for the the people who saw …

• Moses turn a staff into a snake and back, become a leper and heal himself, and turn Nile water into blood by pouring it onto the ground. (Exodus 4:1-9; 29-31)
• The whole Nile turn to blood — AND ALL OTHER WATER IN ALL EGYPT (Exodus 7:14-25)
• Frogs, gnats, and flies PLAGUE EGYPT (Exodus 8)
• God strike down ALL the livestock of Egypt. And to prove it’s not just some random epidemic, NONE of the livestock of the Israelites died. (Exodus 9: 1-6)
• God strike both man and beast with boils (Exodus 9: 8-10)
• The INSTANTANEOUS summoning and clearing of a deadly (yeah. it killed stuff) hailstorm (Exodus 9: 13-33)
• A plague of locust that TOTALLY cleared everything they could clear and made Egyptian history as the “WORST LOCUST PLAGUE TO HIT EGYPT EVER” (Exodus 10: 1-18)
• A phenomenon that they can only describe as “Darkness” where NO LIGHT was seen for THREE WHOLE DAYS — a darkness God described as “a darkness so thick you can feel it” (Exodus 10: 21-29)
• A sad and scary event where ALL the firstborn Egyptian males (human and animal alike) DIED while those of the Israelites who observed the Passover slept soundly through the night (Exodus 11 – 12:1-29)
• Their release from captivity! (Exodus 12:31-40)
• A magical GPS device that was a fluffy cloud by day and a fiery pillar (a GPS, a light source, and a heat source!) by night ! (Exodus 13:21)
• THE SPLITTING OF THE RED SEA — A WHOLE SEA! And they walked on completely DRY LAND — COMPLETELY DRY.  Which! Closed off just in time for their pursuers to drown! (Exodus 14: 15-29)
• The first (I think?) water filter that was thrown into a bitter OASIS which — surprise surprise — made it DRINKABLE! (Exodus 15: 22-27)

Okay. Let’s pause here for a minute. That looks to me like a sparkling, over-the-top resume that God built up for Himself!

Right?

In just 10 chapters, God was able to showcase a ton of a lot of things!

BUT!

Let’s go back to the passage awhile ago,

Then Moses told them, “Do not keep any of it until morning.”

Exodus 16:19

Why was that there? It was a way for God to teach His chosen people a lesson: a lesson on faith and trusting Him.

Apparently, even after all the ostentatious display God’s power, the Israelites were not quite faithful enough to believe in God — to trust in Him and have faith that HE IS POWERFUL and CARES FOR THEM!

Exodus 16:20 says,

But some of them didn’t listen and kept some of it until morning. But by then it was full of maggots and had a terrible smell. Moses was very angry with them.

The instruction was for them to take only the needed amount for the whole day and trust that God would provide for more the next day. Some Israelites just did not have that kind of faith in God. They had to take matters into their own hands.

It’s in these stories that God’s grace and love is perfectly shown. God had already done enough to prove His power and faithfulness, but He knew not all of His beloved children have learned the lesson yet. So He gave them things like the manna incident to learn.

Faith is not something we can have on our own. That very thing that is require to please God is something that God cultivates in us. We humans are just not capable of that. We are greedy and selfish, trusting people is hard for us — even trusting God. God knows that and that’s why He’s the “author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2)

So what should we be doing then?

Simple: Obey.

God has put things very plainly for us. Things get complicated because we complicate them with our intellect (that seeks to prove we are better at understanding things than God), our greed (we try to bargain with God and have our own way), and our stubbornness (we just are stubborn.)

Exodus 16:19 was a clear command, obeying it would exercise your faith. Faith is a muscle, the more you exercise it the stronger it becomes. And God is our Trainer — in charge of our diet, our workout routine, and our moral support to keep us going.

What is Your Personal trainer telling you right now?

How do you find out?

SPEND TIME WITH HIM.

How?

Read His word and pray — simple as that.