It was your typical morning routine: workout, get kids up and out, drive one to school bus stop, come home and eat. I reached into the cupboard for the cereal and bowl, and absentmindedly poured it out. It wasn’t until I put the spoon in that I noticed writhing worms in my bowl. Eww, gross… and stinky!
I threw out the contaminated food, set the dish to be cleaned, and tried a new cereal. This time I watched as it poured out, and what I saw astonished me. It was more worms. Frantically I searched every box for real food, but to my dismay I only found more worms. Sounds like a dream, but in reality, something like this happened to the Israelites traversing the desert. (No, it didn’t literally happen to me!)
The newly freed Israelites were blessed with ‘food from heaven’ which they called manna. It fell every morning and they gathered enough for each person of the household for that day only. If they took more and tried to leave it until morning it bred worms and stank. (Ex. 16:20) They learned an important lesson: that when God expects you to have fresh bread daily, not try to survive on old bread. Jesus said to pray that God would give us ‘our daily bread’. (Mat. 6:11)
Jesus claimed to be the Bread of Life*. I think the point was that He sustains us, but we were never meant to live on yesterday’s ‘glory’ or our time with Him; we are supposed to have fresh daily time with Him. Just as we won’t starve without actual food in three days though it can make us feel weak and sick, three days without the presence of Jesus will weaken us and make us spiritually unwell. Could explain why I’m feeling a little weak today…
Lord, help me to always set aside special time to be with You every day.
*John 6:32-35 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.