I’m glad I didn’t live in the Old Testament days of wandering in the wilderness with the Israelites. I can’t imagine how difficult that lifestyle would have been. Nor can I see eating the same thing for every meal—manna and quail. I’m sorry, but that would get old pretty fast. (On the other hand, at least it took the guesswork out of what to make for dinner every night…) Still, I have to admit that this manna phenomenon was pretty amazing. Every morning God provided for His people, and they always had just the right amount of food. No leftovers (unless it was the sixth day and they gathered some for the Sabbath), and no one went away hungry. Incredible. But it also taught the people a valuable lesson—God provided for them one day at a time. They learned to trust Him that He would indeed provide for them the following day.
Ah, trust. That’s hard to do sometimes, isn’t it? To trust someone else, we have to believe they’ll do what they said they would do. We become vulnerable to a degree because we aren’t doing it ourselves. We have to trust that they’ll keep their word. It intrigues me that in the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to give us “this day our daily bread” (emphasis mine). We aren’t asking God to give us a storehouse or to stockpile everything we need for the rest of our lives. No, instead we ask that He give us what we need for today. That’s it. And that’s hard. Whether it’s food, money, or even intangible things like emotional strength, God gives us what we need one day at a time. Sure, you may have money in the bank and food in the fridge, but you use those things one day at a time. Each day we trust that God will give us what we need for that day.
Look with me at what Jesus says in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6. He tells us, “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body worth more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” He goes on to give the example of flowers clothed in great splendor even though they put forth no effort. So if God provides for birds and flowers, can’t He be trusted to provide for His dear children?
So what do you need today, dear one? Do you need emotional strength to get through the day? Perhaps physical strength? Has your paycheck run out too soon? Are you wondering how to stretch the food in the pantry through the weekend? Take it one day at a time. Don’t look at the big picture and get overwhelmed. Trust that your Father in heaven will indeed give you just what you need for this day. And that’s enough.
TruthNotes 