Do you ever wonder if God’s grace is great enough to help you withstand your day or particular circumstance?
Would you say there are times when you miss God’s providential work/help/grace in your life?
If either of those things are true, you are not alone. And, today, my goal is to encourage you as well as help you.
God’s Providence in Your Situation
The Children of Israel alongside Moses provide us the example we need to remember God’s providential kindness to us and our natural responses to pressure. Consider what Moses writes:
4 Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: “Who will give us meat to eat? 5 We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; 6 but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!”
7 Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its color like the color of bdellium. 8 The people went about and gathered it, ground it on millstones or beat it in the mortar, cooked it in pans, and made cakes of it; and its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil. 9 And when the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell on it. (Numbers 11:4-9)
Manna is a supernatural food provided by God every morning while the Children of Israel were in the wilderness (desert) to be enough food for the day ahead, except for Fridays when there was a double portion provided by God to cover the Sabbath day as well. This happened daily for years and years.
Notice the People and How This Affects You
The text says that the Children of Israel were dominated by their intense desires for something different than the supernatural food God provided. They yielded to those temptations. What happened? Every man stood at the door of his tent crying because he wanted something different than what God provided.
Catch this. They literally had to stand in manna at the front door of every tent in order to complain to God that He was not providing for them, and believed they had it better as slaves in Egypt. What??
Standing in the midst of God’s supernatural, providential care for them, they complained because God was not giving them what they wanted. They failed to see God’s providential care even while literally standing in the midst of God’s care.
Friend, this can happen to us as well. Whenever we allow our desire for something to become the controlling force in our hearts, we will only be satisfied with God’s care if we get what we want. The result: we grumble and complain even in the midst of God’s providential care.
Make sure you look around you today and this week to see the wonderful grace of God.
If you missed your service this past weekend, here’s a link to my message from Sunday out of this same passage. You’ll get the full context for this verse in the message.
