...look like in the 21st Century?
My daughter Betsie writes about that in this blog post:
While one of the interns here at We Will Go ministries was reading Exodus 16, she asked God what bread raining from heaven would look like now.
That's when her phone rang. It was an associate pastor from a big church a city over. He was calling to ask if we wanted any chicken? Because he had been at a lunch board meeting and they had fifty pieces of fried chicken leftover plus cases of coleslaw, potato salad, marshmallow fruit salad, pork 'n' beans, and garlic bread. Ashley, our intern, said come on.
A few hours later while he was unloading the fifty pieces of fried chicken and sides, Ashley shared my family's story with him. She told him about how there are nine of us and I'm graduating from high school in two days and my younger brother David has his 16th birthday party this Saturday and this food will really bless them because they only have a little over a hundred dollars to stretch and pull for the rest of the month.
The associate pastor listened quietly while Ashley spoke, and when she finished, he said, "I found this on a drain pipe this morning," and pulled out a hundred dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to her. "Give this to that family."
That's what bread raining down from heaven looks like in the 21st century. It looks like the daughters and sons of God living like princesses and princes in inner-city Jackson, Mississippi. We bought decorations for David's party, supplies for my graduation display, and groceries with that manna and feasted on fried chicken, garlic bread, salad, coleslaw, marshmallow fruit salad, pork 'n' beans, and potato salad that night with a visiting ten-member missionary family.
"In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, 'What is it?' For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, 'It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: "Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.'" And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat." -Exodus 16:13-18
When it was written that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever, they were writing truth. He overcame death and the God of daily provision and meat for dinner and bread for breakfast lives today. Sometimes we make Him so super-spiritual; and He is super spiritual, but He is also extremely practical. In the same moment of time, He was sitting on His heavenly throne, robed in glory, while an army of angels bowed before and walking through a field on Sabbath with his homeless friends, dressed in dusty rags, breaking off heads of wheat because they're absolutely famished. Why don't we let Him be both? Because He is both people: a mighty king, and a carpenter working to provide food for his mother and brothers and sisters.
I've just never ate the quail and manna before because I never allowed Him to be the God who provided my daily bread for me before. He has always been that God and will always be that God, I've just not always been on this level with Him. After all, He is a lover, not a rapist. He will never force Himself or His gifts on you. He is a gentleman and will wait on you forever. The manna and quail will never be given until we extend our empty plates and empty hands and say, "Please, Sir, can I have some more?" And He will give more every single time. He will give immeasurably more than all we could ever ask for or imagine.
