Spoiled "manna", worry, & fear

Do you ever look at your circumstances and even though your needs for today have been met...you soon begin to doubt that your needs for tomorrow will be taken care of too???


In Exodus 16, God not only gave the Israelites miraculous "manna" & provisions, but also where God gave them instructions for gathering and receiving it.  

God's instructions as written in Exodus 16:4-5

4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

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 Simple enough, right? Go get manna for each day, except on the 6th day, get enough manna for two days.  


So this foreign substance miraculously begins to form on the ground (verses 14-15), and the people questioned each other, saying, "What is it?" 


Moses explained it was the bread God had given them to eat and explained how much they were to gather. In verse 19, Moses said to them, "No one is to keep any of it until morning."


Needless to say, some people kept some of their manna until morning, only to find it spoiled and filled with maggots. (vs. 20) 

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Can you relate? At all? Or are you the one who totally, 100% trusts God to do EVERYTHING He says He will do. Can you take God at His word? Do your own doubts and fears resemble those of the Israelites who kept some manna for the following day? Do you ever wonder "how, and why, and when God???"


Yesterday, I shared how God provided toilet paper for me through my friend. He ALWAYS provides for me like that and remains SO faithful to me. Yet this morning, I found myself wondering where my next pack of toilet paper will come from when this runs out. 


REALLY?!?!?! Hello Heaven! It's no wonder I lose my joy so quickly! The more I study this journey of the Israelites, the more I see myself in the words on the pages of Exodus.  I used to laugh and deny I could EVER be as...ahem...SO ungrateful!...as the Israelites were!  Now I'm beginning to see more and more why I am on this journey in my own wilderness!  I pray I will NOT spend 40 years here though because I would be totally ancient by then!!!


Anyway........(babble, babble, babble...)


Oh Jesus, help me!  I'm gently reminded of Matthew 6:25-27

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]?

God IS SO trustworthy! I KNOW this! I've SEEN this! I've LIVED this! God is SO faithful! God IS my Provider! He NEVER leaves me without what I NEED!


So Heavenly Father, I pray the words from the boy's father in Mark 9:24, 

"I DO believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

It's IN the presence of God that our fears and worries will lessen. It's IN the act of worshiping and praising God, that our focus is shifted from looking outward and inward...to upward...where it belongs :)