Daily Reading (2/23/09)
Numbers 12, 13
Psalm 90
Mark 2
Scripture
7 The manna looked like small coriander seeds, and it was pale yellow like gum resin. 8 The people would go out and gather it from the ground. They made flour by grinding it with hand mills or pounding it in mortars. Then they boiled it in a pot and made it into flat cakes. These cakes tasted like pastries baked with olive oil. (Num 11:6-8) (From yesterday’s reading)
14 Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love,
so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives. (Psalm 90:14)
Observation
Growing up I always invisioned manna as this flaky, white stuff that magically appeared on the ground and when the people went out each morning it was ready to eat. But manna had to be gathered AND THEN processed in order for it to become food. God provided the manna no matter where His people were and in every circumstance, but the people still had to WORK to make it palatable and nutritious. Lazy, undiciplined people would starve in the presence of abundance. Wow.
Application
God tells us mulitiple times that He will satisfy us EACH morning. So, can I just wake up each morning, in the presence of abundance, and say “Okay God, here I am, fill me up!?” Jesus said that mana was like our spiritual food, provided by God each day. So, that means that lazy, undiciplined ME will spiritually STARVE unless I take the Word of God and grind it down into a more palatable form. I must have DICIPLINE. I’m sure that waking up each morning in order to gather the manna and grind it down and make food from it was A DRAG! I’m sure they wanted to gather TONS of it and make enough food for the entire week so they could SLEEP IN the next morning! But God made all of the stored up food ROT and GROW WORMS! AAAACHHHH! I guess just because I was able to pull myself out of bed yesterday does not mean that I will be filled today. Dang it! I HATE dicipline. BUT NO WAIT GOD, I’m not complaining! (Eek, that was close.)
Prayer
Father God, thank-you so much for giving me my daily bread. I know now that it is not free. It does come with the price of dicipline. Teach me to accept the pain of dicipline rather than wait and feel the pain of consequence. Thank-you for letting me learn from the mistakes of those who have gone before me. I do want to be filled every morning with your Love. I want to SING FOR JOY to the end of my days! Help me be diciplined. Help me to get up each morning and gather the manna You have freely laid out for me and to have the dicipline to grind it and make it into something nutritious.
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Great insight. Discipline at doing anything is tough for me too (as you well know).
After reading your post I actually have an insight of my own that I would like to share with you: I’ll bet that back then the guys were like: “where is my processed manna?” I also envision that the wives processed that manna with a smile on their face.