Faithful to What the Lord has Said

Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.  And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.  -Exodus 16:4, 5 (KJV) 

I seem to have a hard time keeping up with when the post office is closed for holidays.  I do all right with the big ones like Christmas, New Year’s, and Easter, but I often forget about Presidents’ Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Let’s Eat Peaches for a Day – Day (I made up that last one).  What’s funny is that even on those days when I know that the post office is closed and the mail isn’t going to run, I still end up wandering down to the mailbox to see if I have any mail.  About the time I open the mailbox and find it empty is when I’m thinking, “Oh, right; today is Groundhog Day!”  

I am continually amazed at how these day-to-day actions can become so ingrained into our thinking that we do them automatically.  Have you ever had an extended power outage, and during that period walked into a darkened room and flipped a light switch – knowing full well that the power was out?  I rest my case. 

The Word of God demonstrates this for us in amazing clarity when the Lord provided for the Israelites the manna that appeared each morning on the ground.  The manna was like a thin crust that could be gathered and cooked like bread or meal.  This was God’s way of feeding the people as they wandered in the wilderness.  God gave them specific instructions that six days a week they were to gather only enough to feed their families for that day (Exodus 16:4).  However some didn’t believe God and tried to hold some back (v 20).  It was as the Bible says that the leftover manna was rotten and unusable.  And on the seventh day, the Sabbath, God said that there would be no manna on the ground.  However, the people still went out that day and looked for it (v 27).

We are certainly like that sometimes.  The Lord tells us what we are to do, but we often go and try it our way.  Even when we know full well what the Lord has told us we still appear to be intent on going against what the Lord has said.  We do this to our own detriment, for we are blessed through doing God’s will.  Be careful not to allow habit and what we think is best to stand in the way of faithfulness to God. 

The troubled soul finds blessings in obedience to God and being faithful at all times.