Gathering manna every morning

Chapter 16 of Exodus finds the Israelites traveling through the wilderness, without easy access to food. God, in turn, rains manna and quail from heaven, with specific instructions regarding how they are to collect it. Verse 21 (KJV) of that chapter reads,

They gathered it every morning.

This passage first reminds us that God provides our daily provisions. But, second, it reminds us that we bear responsibility to gather. This gathering pertains to items to sustenance, such as food, and also to spiritual matters, such as godliness. And what better time to conduct that gathering than in the morning, before the distractions of the day begin!

So let us begin our days in prayerful spirits, collecting that spiritual manna that God is so eager to provide for us.

Unquestioning trust

Mark 6:30-44 tells of Jesus feeding more than 5,000 people with five loaves of  bread and two fish. The very next passage (Mark 6:45-52) tells of Jesus' disciples getting stranded on a boat during a storm. Being stranded during a storm must be a scary experience, but you'd think that, having just witnessed Jesus create matter out of nothing, the disciples would trust Jesus to save them from danger.

Mark 6:52 (KJV) highlights their lack of trust,

They considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened.

We all struggle with this problem. We intuitively "know" that God -- having created time, space, and matter -- certainly can bend the physical rules of those things in order to establish his will. But somehow we doubt that he will.

As a broader point, a common complain is: How can God allow bad things to happen to his followers. The key, I think, is to realize that, whether we experience joy or pain, God works for the ultimate benefit of his followers. For an extreme example, consider Joseph being sold into slavery. His extremely dire circumstances eventually worked for the benefit of billions of people, including us! But his circumstances didn't seem so hot at the time!

God knows what he's doing, and he asks for our trust. But establishing that type of unquestioning trust is a difficult aspect of faith. I don't have it! But I believe that we can work toward it through prayer.

"My face shall not be seen"

In Exodus 33:18 (KJV), Moses says to God,

I beseech thee, shew me thy glory.

God responds (33:20, KJV),

Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.

As discussed in the Life Application Study Bible, because we are finite and morally imperfect, we cannot at the same time exist in our imperfect states and see God. In fact, our earthly perceptions struggle to fathom what "seeing" means in a spiritual sense.

However, God does reveal part of his presence to Moses (33:23, KJV),

Thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.

God allows Moses see him as he passes by, which indicates that our finite minds know God by what he does, not by how he "looks."

As humbling as this passage is, I also find it encouraging. Whenever we become frustrated that we don't comprehend God's full plan, and we struggle to sense his full presence, we should recall that Moses, one of the central figures of the entire Bible, and the person who arguably came closest to actually seeing God, also struggled with this same partial revelation.

Our task is to remain humble in prayer, and trust that God's design is greater than ours.

"Cause the lamp to burn always"

Genesis 41:4 (KJV) describes a part of pharaoh's dream,

The ill favoured and leanfleshed kine did eat up the seven well favoured and fat kine.

As Joseph interprets for pharaoh, the lean kine -- "kine" being an archaic word for "cows" -- represents a seven-year famine that would follow seven years of economic success. Joseph advises pharaoh to save during the seven successful years in order to prepare for the lean years.

But as Charles Spurgeon points out, those lean kine also represent our own unfortunate experiences with spiritual backsliding. As Spurgeon puts it,

My days of sloth have ruinously destroyed all that I had achieved in times of zealous industry ... my fits of worldliness have thrown me back from my advances in the divine life.

How do we avoid those times of "lean kine"? An answer comes in Exodus, where God instructs the Israelites on construction of the holy tabernacle. A seemingly trivial detail in those instructions involves the burning of the lamp (Exodus 27: 20, KJV),

Command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always.

It's easy to fall asleep while reading details of Hebrew law in the Old Testament. But those details help emphasize spiritual commitment and/or foreshadow the arrival of Jesus. The detail of the lamp obviously serves as a reminder to keep our spiritual zeal burning. And we can achieve that through "praying without ceasing."