manna

Do you ever have a day where you are just like, "WOW, I am basically owning this day"?

I hope so. We all need to nail it sometimes.

Then there are days when you wake up late and can't seem to catch a break the rest of the day.

You know the days I'm talking about.

Its a day when you aren't just riding the struggle bus...its like you are drunk driving the struggle bus. (I am definitely not condoning drinking and driving...just in case you are confused.)

I'll be frank, today was the second kind of day. I feel like I have been behind since it started. There were so many deadlines, so many hiccups, so much stress all day long just piling on my incredibly tense shoulders. My head was pounding, my jaw was locking up and at moments I was straight up panicking that nothing would go right.

I had to actually stop myself in my tracks and remind myself to breath...just breath.

Sometimes I take too much credit for what the Lord uses me to do. Today was one of those days.

Working in the environment I work in, it is easy to feel like the stakes are somehow higher. If I screw up at work a homeless person could lose their chance at housing. If I miss a deadline the shelter could miss out on important funding which adds up to food on the table for the hungry or paychecks for a weary staff that is already underpaid.

Today, as I was panicking these were the fears and lies flying through my head. I was taking on my shoulders things that I needed to give to the Lord.

I was thinking about the Israelites again today because this morning, somewhere in the midst of oversleeping and being hopelessly swamped all day, I managed to read my Bible.

Today I read how, after everything the Lord had done, the Israelites griped to Moses because they were hungry.

"Did God really lead us into the wilderness to STARVE?!?"

I mean this is the band of misfits that just walked through the middle of the sea, on dry ground, with great walls of water around them. This is the same ungrateful crew that just saw their enemies swept away and destroy once and for all before their very eyes. Even after all that they have not learned to truth the Lord. They didn't trust because they couldn't see past their own weakened view of the situation.

Its amazing, I have seen God do some powerful things and have learned to trust Him when life falls apart in the big ways. Yet here I was today, in the midst of a bit of chaos that in the grand scheme of things was not very big, and I could not see past my own weakened view of things to find rest in the power of God.

I love that in the story of the Israelites the way that God provides is a way that makes them trust EVERYDAY for their most basic needs. When God provided the manna to feed his people, He told them to take just enough for the day. If they took more, it would rot. Every single day they had to trust in the Lord.

Why? So He could remind them of His power not only to destroy armies but to provide in the most basic daily needs of His people.

I love this verse:

Two things I ask of you;   deny them not to me before I die:  Remove far from me falsehood and lying;    give me neither poverty nor riches;    feed me with the food that is needful for me,
 lest I be full and deny you    and say, “Who is the Lord?”or lest I be poor and steal    and profane the name of my God. Proverbs 30:7-9 

Today in my fury to do it all myself I missed out on opportunities to trust that the Lord had it under control. In my own way, even though my service was for a noble purpose, I was saying "Who is the Lord?" because I thought that the only way things could possibly get done was in my weakened view of things.

I missed the chance to lay my little burdens at the feet of my Master and then revel in the joy of picking up the manna that He would most certainly lay before me.

Don't be like the Israelites, whining about the small things to a God who has already proven Himself over and over and over.

And don't be like me.

Rest in the Lord and trust that in just the right time, no matter how big or small the need, manna from heaven will arrive.