There’s an old story in the Bible about God’s people, the Israelites when they were walking through the wilderness. The Israelites tended to grumble and complain about their hunger, even stating that it was better for them while they were captivity in Egypt, because at least then they had food to eat. So to take care of their physical needs, the Lord provided food called manna. It is described as a fine, flake-like thing, like the frost on the ground, arriving with the dew during the night. It appeared in the morning and it is what the Israelites lived off of during their entire time in the desert.
The word ‘manna’ literally translates as, ‘what is it?’
Being hungry, the people collected and ate manna every single day. But they had no idea what it was. It was one long-standing miracle that occurred every single day.
The manna was a mystery. They chose to gather up that which is baffling. For 14,600 days they took their daily nourishment from that which they don’t comprehend. They eat the mystery. And this mystery is described to taste like wafers of honey on their lips.
They eat the mystery.
They get filled by the mystery.
And they find soul-filling in the inexplicable.
I think of all the pain and heartache in the world and in my own personal life and I think of all the mysteries that I have refused to let nourish me. If it were us, would we really choose the manna? Are those things that crush and break open our hearts, those things that puncture our whole world, could they become places to see. To see through to God. Maybe they could be the thin, messy places that we see through to Him.
But how do we allow the holes to become places where we see through to God? How do we allow the anger and pain to nourish us?
When we are despairing, we can choose to live as Israelites gathering manna. For 40 long years, God’s people daily eat manna. We can chose the mystery.
“Can you eat My manna? Can you sustain on My mystery? Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world?”
Perhaps if I had the perspective of the whole, then maybe I’d see it. That which seems evil, is it a cloud to bring rain, to bring a greater good to the whole of the world? Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?
I am like a wandering Israelite who sees the flame in the sky above, the pillar, the smoke from the mountain, the earth open up and give way, and still I forget. I am plagued by chronic soul amnesia. I need refilling. I need to come every day again, to bend, clutch, bring it to my lips, and remember, for we must gather the manna every single day-not hoarding it.
We can trust in God even when it’s dark and obscure and even when it’s manna-nourishment and we don’t know what it is. The God whom we thank for fulfilling His promises, we can always trust once more.
Until Home and Promised Land and the day of complete clarity, I’m a wanderer crossing bridges, wanderer eating manna, eating mystery. For really, as long as I live, travel, is there ever anything else to eat? I either take the ‘what is it?’ and eat the mystery with trust, and nourished for another day, or I refuse it and starve.
For 14,600 days, the Israelites ate the manna, and were nourished by the mystery.
