Monday Morning Mail, 8th September 2014

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Good Morning!

Yesterday we started a new series at St Jude's - "In the Wilderness". We'll be looking at Israel's journey from Egypt to Sinai, and then from Sinai to the edge of the Promised Land. Homegroups also have material on the same passages! Being in the wilderness is a time of difficulty, a time of now-and-not-yet, a time of testing, and can be a real time of growth. That's my prayer for us this term!

We started by looking at Exodus 16. God's people have just come out of Egypt. They have seen the plagues; they have taken part in the Passover, they have crossed the Red Sea. God has provided them with water in the desert, but now it's a month after they left Egypt, and they are running out of food fast. Folk are getting hungry; maybe babies aren't putting on weight properly and the older members of their families are getting frailer.

But in their trouble, they don't remember God. He has led them out into the desert, and yet their response is to forget about his power and provision, and instead grumble about their human leaders - Moses and Aaron.


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God's response is striking. In a carefully-structured account, he tells them that he will provide bread and meat for them to eat. God doesn't do this because they deserve it – they don't. God does this because he is generous, and even though they have been grumbling, he still wants to save them.

He does much more that that though. He shows them something of his glory, and he puts his finger on the heat of what they are doing wrong – they are grumbling against him. God is a God who lovingly provides for our needs. How much better to ask him to provide for us than to grumble when we don't have what we need!

At the heart of the passage is v8a – that they will know that God is with them by the fact that he feeds them. God wants his people to learn to trust him by the way that he feeds them – by the way that as they wake up every morning wondering whether he will have provided, they will discover that he has and his mercies are new every morning – by the way that he makes these former slaves take a day off every week.

God wants his people to learn that they need him far more than they need food or drink. He wants his people to learn to walk with him, trusting him as their God. He wants them to see that they need his bread to provide for them.

It's hardly surprising that Jesus identified himself with the manna in John 6. He is the way God provides for us. He is the one who is broken that we might live. When we find ourselves in the wilderness, let's take the opportunity to learn to trust his provision for us!

God bless,

John

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