Posted By Christina M on August 3, 2015

Some personal reflections about Manna and yesterday’s readings…

1. Manna is about trust. God keeps laying out the manna in my life, too. And I keep wanting to collect it up and save it till it rots, because stupid me, I keep forgetting to trust. What is it that is so hard-headed that I still worry that even though the sun has risen every day since creation, tomorrow it might not rise? And if it didn’t, how could I be so foolish as to think that there’s anything I could do about it?

2. Manna is about gratitude. God has already kept the Israelites alive until this point. But instead of praying to Him that they are hungry, they grumble that He is starving them. I’ve grumbled, too, so many times. Sometimes it’s not really about trust but about comfort.

3. Manna is about patience and forgiveness. God’s that is. They grumble, He provides. I guess He understood that they were still children in their faith, having been brought up in godful Egypt.

4. Manna, and the whole desert experience, is about slavery. It’s pablum to wean the child off of the infected mother’s milk of children who have never known freedom. Like the talking horses in The Horse and His Boy, they do not yet know how to run to their fullest power, because they are still inhibited by having been slaves. They are not yet ready for Everything, so God first teaches them that He will provide Everything. Depend on Him, and He will meet your needs in the way He chooses.

5. Manna is about complaining. Complaining is a special kind of tunnel vision in which we can easily get so wrapped up in criticizing God for what we don’t have that we forget to bless Him for what we have. The Israelites griped about having nothing but manna, even as they roasted their quail. It is awfully easy to get caught up in complaining to God that He doesn’t do things the way we dictate, rather than thanking Him for doing things according to His infinite love.  In the end, until we stop complaining about the manna, we aren’t ready to get to the milk and honey.

Forty years I endured that generation. I said to myself ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know my ways. So I swore in my anger they will not enter into my rest.

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