Are you trying to store up your manna?
Dear CoaH,
Are you trying to store up your manna?
In Exodus 16, the Israelites receive manna and quail for forty years in their wilderness journey. Can you imagine every morning going outside and collecting manna? Without fail, the LORD provided manna for them so that they did not go hungry for forty years!
The LORD’s instruction on collecting manna was clear: do not collect more than you need. Some people got greedy and gathered way more than they needed. What happened to the leftover manna? They discovered the next day that manna was full of maggots and began to smell bad.
They learned that manna is not meant to be storage food, but the kind of food that was meant to be consumed daily. What a powerful way to realize that greed has no place in their lives! Yes, when God provides for everything, we do not need to be greedy. The only exception for the excessive gathering was for the Sabbath-keeping. The Israelites were allowed to gather another day’s worth of manna before the Sabbath since they could not work on it. In that case, the extra manna did not go wrong. The people of God learned how to put trust in the LORD. If they had a way of storing a year’s worth of manna, their eyes probably started to wander off. Daily manna was a reminder that they needed God every day of their lives.
Fast forward to our time now in the thick of the pandemic. Do we still believe in the provision of manna? As Christians, we would not be true to ourselves if we did not think that God still provides us with manna. Yes, God provides, even when we see nothing but the dark clouds in the sky. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray for their daily bread (Matt. 6:11), he did not have in mind the ten-year or the twenty-year plan. No, his focus was here and now. He said, ‘do not worry about tomorrow.’ Instead, he taught them to seek His Kingdom first and its righteousness.
The pandemic is getting longer and longer, putting some of us into deep worries. It is time to focus on the LORD, not on how to collect more manna than we need. Our confidence is in the LORD continually.
May the LORD bless you.
Pastor Minho Song
