Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.’”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, October 5, 2022
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
The word ‘manna’ literally translates as ‘what it is?’ God sent the people exactly what they had asked for, exactly what they needed for their flourishing, and the people were, understandably, skeptical. It didn’t look like the bread they were used to eating. It didn’t taste quite like bread, but “was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.’ (Exodus 16:31) That actually sounds pretty darn tasty.
Which just goes to demonstrate that God absolutely has our back, no matter what, but that oftentimes, God’s help—God’s unfathomable, life-transformative grace and mercy—doesn’t look the way we were expecting. So we’re skeptical… Or, at least, I am. But there’s an astonishing quote in recovery literature that says, “When we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God’s hands were better than anything we could have planned.” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p.100) And I have found it to be true again and again and again. So the next time God provides something new and interesting to help me in my struggled, I’ll probably still say, “What is it?” but then sometime down the road I’ll look back and think, “Wow. That was tasty!”
When has God shown up in my life in a surprising and even confusing way?
