Taking Things Day By Day

Exodus 16—Manna and Quail

The Israelites left Egypt and were in the dessert. At this point, they were starving. They thought back to the times when they were in Egypt and had all the food they wanted. Now, they were blaming Aaron and Moses, saying “…you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

Exodus 16:10—While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the LORD appearing in the cloud.

God provided. He heard their grumbling and provided them with bread each day, with the exception of the Sabbath. On non-Sabbath days, the Israelites were to eat as much as they wanted on that day, but they could not keep the manna overnight because it would become filled with maggots and would reek. I think God might have done this to develop the Israelites faith day-by-day. It also caused the Israelites to run to God each day and remember Him. (It is in times of excess when we are more tempted to forget about God.) Each day they had to trust Him for that day’s bread. Each day they had to trust that God would provide.

I think that it is similar in following God throughout our lives. Many of us want to have everything mapped out from beginning to end. We want to know where we will be five, ten, twenty, fifty years in the future. Instead of promising us the map, God promises us His presence. He wants us to take it day-by-day. He wants us to trust Him every step of the way. He wants us to run to Him each day.  It would be so easy to forget about Him if we had the map, saying, "Well, I know where I'm going, no need to consult God."

One of the verses I like that speaks of following God is Psalm 119:105:

Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light for my path.

Someone once pointed out to me that if you put a lamp to your feet, you can only see where you will take your next step. That’s what it is like in following God—you only see enough to take your next step. I think sometimes God reveals more than just one step, but oftentimes it is only a step. But that’s what faith is—trusting that God isn’t going to lead you off a cliff if you follow Him.

Jeremiah 34

In this chapter, God speaks to Jeremiah telling him to go to Zedekiah, King of Judah, and tell him that he will be captured by the king of Babylon.  However, even though that is to happen, God promises (Jeremiah 3:4-5): You will not die by the sword; you will die peacefully. As people made a funeral fire in honor of your fathers, the former kings who proceeded you, so they will make a fire in your honor and lament, “Alas, O master!"

It’s interesting because I think that in many of the prophets’ visions and even in our lives now, God tells us as it is—that we’ll face hardships and sufferings (like in John 16:33b—In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world.).  God tells us that it’s going to be hard.  However, He doesn’t just leave us there; He promises a coming victory.  He promises to come back and usher in a new time where there will be no more suffering or grief or tears or hardship.  It will be a time where see Him face to face and delight in His presence.  What’s great about this, especially when we face hardships, is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we’ll reach it; we will see God.

Love Incomprehensible

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

Isaiah 9:6

Lately, I have been pondering why exactly it is so exciting and awesome and worthy of praise that Jesus was born.  Well, there is the obvious and very true answer—that Jesus was born, dwelt among us, and died to pay the penalty for our sins so that we could have the hope of eternity, forever spent with the one true God.  But what does it really mean that Jesus “became flesh and made his dwelling among us,” as it says in John 1:14?

Jesus, the Son, who had been around since Creation, decided to debase himself to a level even lower than angels.  He left the comforts of heaven where He was “seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple,” as it says in Isaiah 6:1.  He left a world where He was praised and exalted, where the angels called to one another saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3).  There He was rightfully known and revered as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

As the pastor at a Christmas Eve service I went to yesterday said, “He gave up a wonderful life for a horrible life so that we could exchange our horrible life for a wonderful life.”

Jesus had it all and it gave it all up for us.

He came knowing:

• That He, though He was the Lord Almighty, would born as a helpless baby, relying on others to care for him
• That He would be mocked, ridiculed, and rejected (Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. Matthew 22:15)
• That He, His love, and His coming would be misunderstood (“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?  Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us?  Where then did this man get all these things?”  And they took offense at him.  Matthew 13:55-57)
• That He would be betrayed by His closest friends (“I tell you Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.” Luke 22:34)
• That He would experience loneliness (Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4:1)
• That He would face hunger (After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. Matthew 4:2)
• That He would be tempted by Satan (The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Matthew 4:3)
• That He would experience deep anguish (And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.  Luke 22:44)
• That He would face an excruciatingly painful death being nailed to the cross.
• That He would face a separation from God the Father with whom He had always had a perfect relationship. (About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46)

Jesus lowered himself to our level, knowing all of these things.  It blows my mind to think of how Jesus came to face all those things, knowing that the people He came to save would be the very ones that reject and crucify Him.  I think I’ll never understand the depth of God’s love for us.  Today, on Christmas, let’s remember together how deeply Jesus loves us in that He would give up everything to give us everything. Let's thank God for Jesus' birth. :) Merry Christmas!

Bleak Circumstances

"Submission frees us to embrace God's plan for our lifes, a plan He has put together with our very best interests in his heart and mind."  --Nancy Guthrie, The One Year Book of Hope, p. 315

For me, a lot of the times, I fail to submit to God because of a lack of faith in Him.  I too often look at the circumstances and say to God, "Do You see this?  It's so hard.  Are You sure You can do it?"

Today, my friend reminded me of a passage from Romans 4 that talks on the subject of faith:

Verses 18-21--Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be."  Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that Sarah's womb was also dead.  Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

In reading this, a few things struck me:

1. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed--Even though circumstances looked bleak, Abraham trusted in God
2. and so became the father of many nations--Because of his hope in God and trust in God, he then became the father of many nations.
3. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead--Abraham was not in denial saying that there were no bleak circumstances.  He acknowledged the bleak circumstances, but didn't let them waver his faith.
4. but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised--Instead of letting the bleak circumstances shake his faith, Abraham turned it into praise to God.  If anything, I think this verse means that he trusted in God even more in light of the circumstances and that his picture of God grew.  He trusted in God and was "fully persuaded" that God was able to do what He had promised.

In times of bleak circumstances, I think we can follow Abraham's example by doing four things:

1. Trust in God, despite the circumstances
2. Acknowledge the circumstances
3. View the circumstances as mediums through which God is going to display His power all the more
4. Give glory to God when circumstances are overcome, instead of minimizing the bleakness of the circumstances

In facing seemingly overwhelming circumstances, we can be discouraged or encouraged.  We can be discouraged thinking that God is not powerful enough to overcome anything, even though Jesus overcame death.  Or we can be encouraged knowing that God is faithful in keeping promises and that the circumstances will be means through which God will awe us with His power and show us that He truly is the Lord Almighty.

Psalm 73

Sometimes it may feel to me, just like it did to Asaph in Psalm 73, that it seems easier to not follow God when you see the unrighteous prospering.  It seems that they’re doing well, while we’re living lives in which following God seems very hard sometimes.  I finally understand what is meant by our temporary trials achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all (2 Corinthians 4:17).  The choice is ours:

1.      Live a life following God with some hard times, but with the knowledge that God works everything out to the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28) and also with the knowledge that in the end after we leave this earth, we’ll have no more tears or death or mourning or pain or crying (Revelation 21:4) and we’ll spend eternity in the presence of God.

2.      Life a life not following God with some hard times, seeing no rhyme or reason behind those hard times and spending eternity apart from God and everything that is good, loving, and joyful.  To me, that spells out hard times for eternity.

Unthankful Hearts

During a Sunday worship service, our congregation said this prayer of confession in unison: “Gracious God, like many believers before us, we complain when things do not go our way. We want abundance of everything rather than what is sufficient to sustain us. We would rather be elsewhere than where we are at the moment. We would rather have the gifts You give to others than what You provide for us. We would rather have You serve us than serve You. Forgive our lack of gratitude for what You give.” –David C. McCasland (from the Our Daily Bread devotional)

How true that prayer is.  So often we are so focused on what we lack that we forget all that God has given us.  We forget that God will give us everything to do His will (1 Thessalonians 5:24—He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it).  It also shows how weak our flesh is.  We are continually drawn to things of this world that other people have that we do not have.  We forget to delight ourselves in the Lord and so we miss out on God giving us the desires of our heart (Psalm 37:4).

Knowledge of Good and Evil

As part of my training work, I am to read How People Grow by Henry Cloud and Stuart Townsend.  In the part that I read today, they talk about how one of the roles God intended during Creation was that God was the judge of life and we weren't; we were to experience life.  They write, "[God] didn't want humans to 'know' what he knew about evil.

Even though we, as humans, ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we do not and cannot completely comprehend good and evil.  We have finite vision of what is to happen in our lives, linear vision of time, and limited vision of good and evil.  This made me consider:  How can I come before God, knowing that I do not have full knowledge of good and evil, say to God, "This is not good for me, please take it away"?  How can I say to God, "This is good for me, please allow me to have it"?  Or how can I saw to God, "Why are so many bad things happening to me?" How can I say these things if I do not have total knowledge of good and evil?  How do I know whether certain things are truly good or truly bad for me?

It was such a great moment of realization.  How arrogant I had been, thinking I knew what was good and what was bad in my life.  Only God knows.

I was thinking further on this subject and realized that one of the biggest lies Satan can tell us is that we know good and evil or that we are capable of knowing fully about good and evil.  If we believe Him, then we will start to wonder why "bad" things happen to "good" people.  In doing so, we'll be just like Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden and we'll think we completely know good and evil and we'll take things into our own hands instead of trusting the One Who fully knows good and evil and will be with us through everything.