savoring manna

A month ago I wrote looking forward to rest, hoping for a breath of air.  In the days we spent away, we relished in our Creator, cherished extra snuggles and giggles, explored and took time just to sit still.  There was some respite but truly, there is no place this side of heaven where our souls will ever be fully satisfied. Not that we aren't grateful for His grace in abundance but there is no place or person on earth that can satisfy our hearts.

I sat one evening as the sky turned waters pink and the sun spread shimmers of gold across the waves breaking gently on the sand and I heard the rapid beats of a hummingbird's wings.  The red of geraniums popped against the dusk and two little girls sat enfolded in their father's arms on the deck reading.

And wouldn't you know my heart was grumbling like that of an Israelite wandering in the Negev.

Before me was manna falling from heaven, nourishment for my weary soul, yet pangs of ingratitude and mistrust bubbled below the surface of my smile.

I forgot to see all manna as grace and saw only the immediate days past of holding a child while her stomach heaved on vacation, while my own body tread on unfamiliar waters of sickness. With aching insides and wavering faith my thoughts were that of a practical atheist rather than those of a trusting child who believes in a loving Father.

On the wooden deck I sat with my family out of duty, my heart and mind far from the book they were reading. Then I heard words from a book meant for children and was struck by my own childishness.

Now remember--because this is something they'd forgotten--God had done amazing things for his people. He'd hidden them inside a cloud. He'd moved the sea. He'd set them free.  But God's people still weren't happy...

Every day of their journey, God kept on showing his people how well he would look after them, if they would trust him, and obey him. When they were hungry, God made the sky rain with food--bread coming down from heaven!...When they were thirsty and started quarreling, God made water flow from a rock...And still God's children didn't trust him or do what he said. They thought they could do a better job of looking after themselves and making themselves happy. But God knew there was no such thing as happiness without him...

Aren't we all childish? Aren't we all just like the Israelites? Don't we get so caught up in the seeming burden of things like illness or unmet expectations that we fail to see the evident grace all around us?

How quickly I forget that there is no happiness, no satisfaction apart from being with Him. How easily I pour out the complaints and frustrations of my heart forgetting, just like the Israelites did, all that He has done.  How quickly the evidence that He is mighty to save, abounding in love, full of compassion become mere words on a page. How easily I fail to live like I actually believe that He who promised is faithful.

Delight yourself in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart. ~Psalm 37:4

It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that if I am delighting myself in the Lord, He will be the desire of my heart.  It is not a formula: delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you a BMW or perfect health or well-behaved children.

When I delight in Him, He becomes my desire.

And He does not withhold himself from His children. He gives so freely that He gave us Jesus. And what was free to us, a grumbling, undeserving, ungrateful, depraved people, cost God everything. His very Son. He didn't have to but He gave anyway.  And for the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross.

Jesus is our manna, broken like bread, poured out like wine and we have need for no other food. Nothing else can satisfy. In the words of John Piper

The way people meet God today, see God today, and get to know God today is by looking at the glory of Jesus, namely at the fullness of his grace. If you want to be really alert to seeing Jesus’ divine beauty, his glory—the spiritual brightness that sets him apart as self-evidently real and true—then make sure you tune your senses to see his grace. That’s what his glory is full of.

The rhythmic beating of wings, lapping of the tide, gentle stirring of the Holy Spirit began to tune my senses and the moment I had been waiting for arrived as the tightness in my shoulders dissipated and I was able to take in a much needed deep breath. Oxygen and grace filling each cell.

Manna.  I have been given all that I need.

Unlike the Israelites who weren't sure of what their manna was (hence the name 'manna' meaning "what is it?") I know what can satisfy; Who alone can satisfy.

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

Words on a page flash in my memory and I dig through a book to read them

He gave us Jesus. Jesus! Gave Him up for us all. If we have only one memory, isn't this one enough? Why is this the memory I most often take for granted? He cut open the flesh of the God-man and let the blood. He washed our grime with the bloody grace. He drove the iron ore through His own vein. Doesn't that memory alone suffice? Need there be anything more...If trust must be earned, hasn't God unequivocally earned our trust with the bark on the raw wounds, the thorns pressed into the brow...all gratitude is ultimately gratitude for Christ, all remembering a remembrance of Him...

For really as long as I live, travel, is there ever anything else to eat? I either take the "what is it" manna with thanks, eat the mystery of the moment with trust, and am nourished another day--or refuse it and die..This, this is what I've always wanted and never knew: this utter trust, this enlivening fall of surrender into safe hands. ~Ann Voskamp

Weeks later, reality sets in and I often can't hear myself speak above the constant clamor, let alone hear a hummingbird's wings, but I continually remember the moment on the deck where I was reminded once again of just how very much I need a Savior.  I need one so much that I'm even blinded to the fact that I even need Him.  And yet He so graciously gives me eyes, so graciously opens them and so graciously turns my eyes from myself and all the stuff of this world and in His mercy, my gaze falls on Him.

I savor the Manna.



The spirit which actuates us may seem to be a small matter so long as we are outwardly right; but it is in reality the essence of the whole thing. Take away the flavour from the fruit, or the fragrance from the flower, and what is left? Such is correct living without the savour of grace. ~ Charles Spurgeon




For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. 2 Corinthians 1:20

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. Hebrews 12:1-3


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