Exodus 16:35 - "The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan."
I love Cap'n Crunch!
Ya' know? The cereal. Cap'n Crunch was a large part of one of my best seasons in life.
I was three or four. And I was sick.
I had chicken pox. As did my older brother, Ben. The way I remember it, my mom let Ben and me eat Cap'n Crunch for every single meal as we were quarantined in our bedroom at the top of the stairs on the right.
They might remember it differently, but it doesn't matter because I have a great memory of eating the same food for every meal of everyday for a week. And I never tired of it once.
A few years later, I got to eat Mac n Cheese almost every meal for a week. Then there was a season of Ramen noodles. And then there was a season of Solitude and Isolation. Every meal. The same thing.
And every single one of those seasons was connected to a wilderness, to something "bad": chicken pox, missing my parents, early marriage poverty, failed marriage.
But God provided for me everyday in every wilderness, just as God provided for His people everyday in the wilderness in today's Bible verse. Everyday God gave them "manna," which means "What is it?"
And that's what the people asked about that stuff, "What is it?"
And in essence, God said, "It's manna! It's my provision!"
"Noooooo," the people replied, "what iiiiiiiiis it?"
"It's manna," God said, "it's not supposed to be tasty. It's a reminder that I am your provision, that my Word is the Bread of Life."
Can y'all imagine what that was like? Wandering around in a wilderness for forty years, eating the same manna stuff every single day? I bet it felt like they were going nowhere. Just like I did the time I had chicken pox and the time I missed my parents and the season I had no money and the seemingly endless season of being alone. It felt like my life was going nowhere.
And so it was.
Going nowhere.
So God came to me.
In my wilderness. With manna. Ya know? Cap'n Crunch and the like. Reminders of His Presence.
Just like God comes to you.
In your wilderness.
Hang in there.
You're not alone.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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