"Raining Bread"

So…

Have you ever been confused? Like what the heck am I seeing? 

What is going on? Why is life being like this?

I stepped out the side door of the manse last Sunday night, and on the front lawn - right here in downtown Otisville -was a whole herd of deer!

They all looked at me like, “Um, its dark out, you should be in bed!”

Evidently, they didn’t get the memo about Daylight Saving time being over.

Life is really good at throwing us curve balls, sliders, fast balls, and sinkers. Not that I know much about throwing a baseball, but I get the analogy.  

Every day the possibility of something happening we’ve not really seen before becomes part of our story.

Like Sue breaking a twelve-tooth bridge that is going to cost $40,000 to replace. 

What? How can that be? My brain is melting. 

But it happens all the time. Something beyond our comprehension happens and we are like. What?
Just like those Israelites out in the wilderness who have discovered that if you going marching out of Egypt into the dessert it is possible you may have a few difficulties.

You know the story I presume. 

Stuck in Egypt for like 400 years, they - with Moses leadership and God’s direction and those crazy plagues and Passover - are now out of Egypt and on their way to the Promised Land.

But there are some curve balls and sinkers, like no water. 

And it turns out, no food. To which most of us would say, “duh”! 

I mean, what did you expect? You didn’t really pack well for a forty-year trek. What were you thinking? That God was going to provide? You didn’t pack enough food and water! 

And, perhaps, you didn’t pack enough faith either.

So, although you are willing to flee Egypt – you’re not really ready to trust God to keep you fed. 

Your faith in God providing your daily bread - like Jesus reminds his disciples to pray for in what we call The Lord’s Prayer - is a bit undeveloped. 

Your faith is small. But now you have a chance to develop it, don’t you!

Hard times, really are a faith development opportunity!

That lack of faith, you hear loud and clear in the people’s whinny responses to Moses and Aaron, are all about learning to trust God. 

“At least back in Egypt we got three square meals a day! Out here where you have led us – and God has led us- there isn’t a MacDonalds in sight!” 

And Moses, somewhat exasperated, goes to Yahweh and says something like, “O God, Lord of the Universe, your whinny people are hungry!

“The ones who have forgotten to pack faith, somehow have gotten the idea that you are going to let them starve to death, even though you are the God who provides, Jehovah-Jireh, my provider.”

And so, God hears. And God provides. But..

There is a catch. You have to participate in the answer.

You have to go out each morning and collect bread for the day, and at night meat!

And there it was! 

The ground all around them was covered with dew and when the dew evaporated there was this stuff left behind.

And when the Israelites saw it, what do you think they said?

“What is it?” Yep! They said, “Manna?”

Because that is literally what “Manna” means! What is it?

As I noted earlier in the Lord’s prayer we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread!” And God does, especially in the sacred meal we know as communion. 

Yes, its bread! 

Bread set aside for a holy purpose, to feed us, but much importantly - to make us remember that God has always been providing for us. Manna.

The bread given to the people in their time of need by a God who always provides!

Yes, life is crazy. 

Events and situations can seem just like a bucket of hardballs coming at us from every direction.

But hear this, God has got you. 

And your daily bread is the evidence!

Amen.