I haven’t blogged in ages. I honestly haven’t thought too much about it, but today I realized that when God shows me something, I “digest” it better when I write or talk about it. So today, I am resuming my blog and hoping to write on a more regular basis.
It’s been almost a month. This Monday will mark one month since I have been home from my first mission trip. My Cambodia story has been shared in several one on one or group conversations. It is not my intent to share the story via blog. My purpose here is to share what God had showed me this morning regarding the month that I have been home.
When I went to Cambodia, I was hoping to come back changed. In many ways, I have. It was my desire to not lose my passion for the Lord and what He is doing today. One does not need to be in a foreign country to see God’s heart and hand at work. I am blessed in a way that I see it frequently, regardless of my location. But life has a way of sucking the life out of you. Nothing “bad” has happened in the past month, but I quickly found myself consumed by life again. My thoughts somehow drifted from what God is doing and wants to do in me and through me to my “to-do” list. I wake up every morning and the first thing on my mind is everything I have to (or want to) accomplish. This morning I realized that things were starting to feel mediocre – like I was in a rut. I looked at the Cambodia pictures that I have strategically placed around my home and thought, “was that really only a month ago?” It honestly feels like it was 6 months ago. What happened?
So, I grab my coffee and head up to my attic “war room” to inquire of the Lord and try to “fan the flame” if you will. As I began to pray, two words came to mind: altars and manna. Strange. Those two don’t seem to go together. So, I took a little journey through the Old Testament to see what God was trying to show me.
In the OT, people often built altars to the Lord after moments of spiritual significance. Noah built an altar after the flood (Gen 8:20). Abram built an altar when God gave him the promise of land and descendants (Gen 12:8). Isaac built one when God gave them provision of a well (Gen 26:25). Moses and Samuel both built altars after victories in battle (Exodus 17:15 and I Sam 7:17). These altars were built to remember what God had done. They were monuments to the Lord – almost like our modern-day trophies.
I read through 13 stories where people built altars to the Lord and I discovered something: none of them stayed at the altar. They all moved on to whatever God had for them next. The altar ensured that they did not forget what God had done. God had changed their circumstances and simultaneously changed their hearts. These were lessons to remember. But it was not a place to camp out.
The personal application: I have certainly built an altar to the Lord for all He did in Cambodia. I don’t want to ever forget what He did in my heart through the people and circumstances there. However, if I rely on a mission trip to keep me spiritually fueled, I am in trouble.
In Exodus 17, right after an altar-building story, is the story of the manna. Manna was food that God provided for the people every day. He had instructed the people to go out in the morning and gather what was needed for that day. On the sixth day, they gathered double – so that no one had to gather (work) on the Sabbath.
While manna was physical food for the people back then, it can be related to spiritual nourishment for us today. Scripture makes reference to the Word and Jesus as being the Bread of Life. A couple of principles are seen here. First, the people had to do something. They had to gather the manna. God did not spoon feed them. This is where the “if you don’t work, you don’t eat” concept comes into play. In order to eat, they had to choose to wake up and gather what they needed.
Personal application: If I am feeling mediocre, could it be that I am spiritually malnourished because I have not spent enough time gathering my spiritual food? Sure, I spend time on Saturdays, after I have slept in and have no time commitments until later in the day. During the week, I fall into the trap of surviving on a spiritual fast-food diet – hitting the snooze button too many times, praying in the car on the way to work and glancing at a 3-minute devotional app on my phone. In the natural, if you grab McDonalds one day for a quick breakfast, it’s no big deal. If you make a daily habit of it – you’re bound to get sick.
Scripture says that the people woke up and gathered their manna. They woke up with enough time to gather it before beginning their tasks for the day. It was priority. Doing their tasks well depended on their nourishment. Notice that they didn’t wait until lunch hour or after work to gather – it would have been too late. In Exodus 16:21, it tells us that the manna that was not gathered was melted away by the sun. The provision and nourishment was readily available, provided straight from God – but if the people did not gather it, it melted away. Life sucked the life out of it – literally. What a waste.
Lastly, God instructed them to not take more than what they needed for that day. Of course, some of them disobeyed. They tried to “stock up” on manna. Perhaps to save them the work of gathering on a busier than usual day. But what happened? Verse 19 tells us the leftover manna became full of maggots and had a terrible smell. Leave it to humanity. God provides for our needs, but we want it our way and spoil His blessings.
Is this not what we do – albeit unknowingly sometimes? We “stock up” on spiritual nourishment on Sundays with awesome corporate worship and a good Word. We have a spiritual high while on a mission trip or some other ministry experience. We have spiritual pep rallies in our small groups. Those mountain top moments are great. We need them and God generously blesses us with them, but if we rely on yesterday’s manna for today’s needs, we might find it full of maggots and unconsumable.
Life is full of ups and downs, highs and lows – both physically and spiritually. Don’t forget what God has done. Build your altar. Worship Him and thank Him at that altar. Revisit the altar and remember the lessons you learned and how God changed your heart and your life. But don’t stay there. God has a fresh Word for us each day – a Word that is specifically formulated to nourish us for the needs of that particular day. What a blessing! How sweet is it that we have a Father who longs to provide us everything we need for life and Godliness (2 Peter 1:3). But He will not spoon feed us. We have to gather it. We have to get out of bed, we have to set the time aside, we have to open our Bibles and shut out the demands of our looming to-do list.
For me, Cambodia was amazing. I am hoping to go back – and hopefully soon. The altar has been built. But it cannot carry me into what God has for me right now. Each morning, I have to gather my manna, my daily bread. And when I start each day at the gathering place, none of my moments are mediocre, and I have no need to look back.
