When it comes to following Jesus my greatest desire is that it would be easy.

That sounds terrible but it’s true.

It’s difficult to take risks, it’s hard to step out into something when you don’t know the culmination of how it will completely work out, it can be a challenge to act when the circumstances don’t make sense but you believe you have heard God’s instruction. Everything in me desires that God would lay it all out in front of me, that it would be clear, that I would see every step.

Can I get an Amen?

When I was reading through the book of Exodus today I saw this in God’s interaction with His people. They have reached a point where they have left Egypt for about 2 and a half months and the nomadic lifestyle is taking it’s toll on them. They begin to complain against Aaron and Moses, they begin to long back to Egypt where food was plenty and they knew what was next. It was slavery in Egypt but at least they knew it, the freedom they were now experiencing required more faith that the slavery they were used to.

Amazingly God hears their grumbling and tells them that He is going to rain down bread from heaven for them to eat. It’s hard to just pass over that sentence but that’s how He says it. He lets them know that He will miraculously provide for them in the middle of the desert. Interestingly though, He lets them know that He will only provide enough for that day, other than on the Sabbath.

This is fascinating.

God makes it clear that they can only gather what they need for today, they can’t store it up for tomorrow or the next day……….it’s only for today. Each day the people would wake up without bread in their dwellings and they would have to trust that God would send bread that day. That would be their daily routine. They wouldn’t wake up with food already in the cupboards and place their faith in that, they would have to place their faith in the promise of God.

What we find out is that the people struggle with the understanding of this but this ends up being their pattern for the next 40 years in the wilderness!

When I consider this and I think about my desire to see all the steps, to watch the whole map unfurl, I realise that perhaps my faith is less in God’s promise but in the circumstances that present themselves. It would be so much easier to see it all there and to store it up but that doesn’t build my faith and expectancy on God and His ability to always provide.

But that is a hard tension to hold.

Our culture rewards being prepared, having savings, a detailed strategy, carefully looking to the future. I could even say that good stewardship, a biblical concept, would support that mindset as well. So which is it?

I guess like any tension it’s both.

We, like those Hebrews in the desert have to come to God everyday filled with expectancy and faith that He will do what He said He will do, our faith must be in Him. However at the same time we must be obedient and wise with what He has given us, and just like HIs people would store the Manna, the bread, on certain occasions we must listen to voice so that we are always listening to Him.

So, don’t worry if you only have enough for today, whether that is physically, emotionally, financially or any other ‘ally. Often that is how God sets it up, because He wants to interact with us daily so we can build and put our faith in Him.