PSALM 79 - The Death Sentence

God, our Savior, help us so people will praise You.  Save us and forgive our sins so people will honor You.  Why should the nations say, "Where is your God?" Tell the nations in our presence that You punish those who kill Your servants.  Hear the moans of the prisoners.  Use Your great power to save those sentenced to die.   (Verses 9-11)

Hungry, weary and in need of a good shower, Jesus walked out of the wilderness and His encounter with Satan.  Forty days alone and with no food should've left Him vulnerable to the temptations of the enemy -- make a rock into bread, worship me and jump from this precipice to show everyone the antics of the Son of God.  "Don't test the Lord your God."  Interview done.  The enemy slithered away and the Lord, his God, headed to His hometown.  Nazareth.  In the power of the Holy Spirit.

The townspeople had heard all about the miracles Jesus was doing and about His great teachings.  Hometown boy made good.  Let's hear what He has to say.  On the Sabbath, Jesus was in the synagogue.  The priests handed Him a book to read from.  Isaiah.  Jesus knew exactly the passage He'd read.  The Lord has put His Spirit in Me, because He appointed me to tell the good news to the poor.  He has sent Me to tell the captives they are free and to tell the blind they can see again.  God sent me to free those who have been treated unfairly and to announce the time when the Lord will show us His kindness. (61)  Jesus closed the book and sat down.  All eyes were on Him.  What would He do next?

"While you heard these words just now, they were coming true," Jesus declared. 

Hmmm.  What could He mean?  Isn't He just the son of Joseph?  The illegitimate son of Mary?  But what if He's the Messiah?  What if Messiah is our local boy?  Let's see Him do some miracles here.

"I know what you want to say to me," Jesus said, understanding what they were all thinking.  " 'We heard what you did in Capernaum.  Do those things in Your own home town.'  But a prophet isn't accepted in his home town."  He knew these people.  Grew up with them.  Made them.  Jesus reminded the church goers of two stories they would've known well.  During a great drought, Elijah brought water to a heathen widow, not to the dying widows of Israel.  Elisha ignored Jewish lepers and healed Naaman, a Syrian, instead. 

What was He talking about?  Claiming on one hand to be the Messianic hope of Israel and on the other slapping them in the face with stories of God's mercy toward, instead of judgment of, those who weren't Jewish.  This boy of Joseph's, who claims to be the fulfillment of their hopes for liberation, insinuates instead their judgment.  Blasphemy!  Neighbors and priests rushed Him.  Ready to throw Him over the nearest cliff.  When they looked around to grab Him,  He was gone.  Eluded them somehow.

For the whole world to know unequivocally that the prayers of centuries, including the one made by Asaph in this psalm, were answered in Jesus, He began His ministry with the declaration that He'd come to be Messiah.  That meant healing the sick, binding up broken hearts, setting Satan's prisoners free and announcing a new way God would deal with sin.  And it wouldn't be just for the Jews.  It was breathtaking and awful for the Jews to realize salvation was for everyone.  That wasn't fair.  God was their God. 

But all along the Lord showed He loved all of us.  Hagar, thrown with her son into the desert by the jealous Sarah, was visited by the angel of the Lord because He saw her desperation.  Provided for her and Ishmael, her boy.  Rahab, the harlot, a great grandmother of Messiah.  On and on it goes.  God seeing hearts He loves and drawing near.  Jesus came because God so loved the world He gave His Only Son.  And He didn't come to condemn the world, but so the world through Him might be saved. John 3.  By His great love, God answered Asaph's prayer:  Use Your great power to save those sentenced to die.  Because we all are.  No one is righteous, no not one.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Caught in Satan's traps.  Even if it means, like these folks in the synagogue, we miss God because we are so religious we tell God what to do.  Even if we have ruined our lives and think there is no way out of the prisons we have built around ourselves.  We all are sentenced to die for our sins. 

Jesus could've done it some other way.  Satan knew He could call the angels...all of them...to save Him if He jumped off the cliff to show how great He is.  Knew He could turn stones into bread.  It wasn't a matter of mighty power.  It was a matter of our need for salvation.  Save us!  We are helpless!  Still our cry.  Help didn't look like they thought it should.  Jesus wasn't a national Messiah so they could say, "Look, here's our God!"  Instead, Jesus showed us He loves us all.  No nation can brag about Him being just their God anymore, because He so loves the world, He came.

Asaph, God heard you.  A new nation has been created by God Himself.  It is all inclusive.  Lepers, the lame and blind, the pariah and the prince, Irish, Muslim, Jewish and Arab, American and Spanish, smart and challenged, successful and struggling and righteous and sinner.  These make up the holy nation of those who understand what Jesus meant when He said He's the fulfillment of God showing His kindness to the world.  Jesus was raised up in their presence, on a cross outside the city gates, to tell the nations He punishes those who kill His servants.  Then Jesus took that punishment upon Himself.  What kind of God is this?

But you are a chosen people, royal priests, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.  You were chosen to tell about the wonderful acts of God, Who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.  At one time you were not a people, but now you are God's people.  In the past you had never received mercy, but now you have received God's mercy.  I Peter 2

 

PSALM 79 - Is He Mad At Us?

Be angry with the nations that do not know You and with the kingdoms that do not honor You.  They have gobbled up the people of Jacob and destroyed their land.  Don't punish us for our past sins.  Show Your mercy to us soon, because we are helpless!  (Verses 6-8)

There is a young man who lives down the street from us who is bipolar.  Occasionally he yells obscenties at his mother.  The outbursts come suddenly and are very loud.  Call the police loud.  A couple we have known for a long time has two children who are completely out of control, telling their parents what to do instead of the other way around.  I don't interfere in their lives because they are not my family.  I have no control over the lives of  those who don't belong to me.  I pray for these people because I love them, but they aren't mine.

When I read these verses this morning, I heard whining.  Why are You so mad at us?  What about them?  They don't belong to Him.  The standard by which they are judged is completely different from ours, as Christians.  As a mother, I can't expect the next door neighbor's kids to follow all of my rules.  As our Father, God doesn't exact obedience from those who don't care about Him and don't belong to Him.  But, God won't let the godless go on hurting His dear children.  There is a cap on His patience with the "neighbor kids."

I know our God has an agenda for this earth.  He knows how it all plays out in the end, and He's told us the story in advance.  It involves some of us being martyred and beheaded.  We will need to know about the rise in earthquakes, wars and famines.  His children need to acquaint themselves with the signs of the times.  Heads up about events in the Middle East.  My point is we live on this earth in times that may require our lives.  They conquered by the blood of Jesus, the word of their own testimony and they didn't love their lives so much they were afraid of death.  Revelation 12.  We can't misunderstand our need to trust Jesus when it looks like all is lost because we think God is displeased with us.  I don't know that that's what is happening to Asaph as he writes this psalm, but I know it could happen to us in these times we live in.  They are hard to navigate and we must have a compass.  We will perish along with our faith if we don't know who we are in Christ.  If we can't say, "My Father told me this would happen" instead of "Why is God doing this to me?"

I know God punishes sin, past and present.  What Asaph didn't have, though, was the blood of Jesus covering his sin.  We do.  God has already paid the price for our foolish rebellion with His Only Son.  We don't have to cry out to God to forgive our past sin if we have already confessed it.  It has been removed from us as far as the east is from the west and He forgot it!  So if we are living our lives based on what we think is His great anger toward us over forgiven sins, we will do the stupidest things.  It is our high privilege as children of our Father to live like beloved children who are loved because we are His very own not because we are always such great kids.  We mess up.  We get it right.  Neither of these things makes our God love us more or less.  We are loved.  Period.  Because He decided to love us.

I know God will see us through.  But we can't distrust His motives in these times.  We can't think He is punishing us for something we've done when we watch our world deteriorate.  That destroys faith.  And faith is what we will need in abundance as the end times play out.  We must know Him so well that when fire comes from weapons of war or out of the sky, our faith in His love for us doesn't waver.  We don't feel punished.  Because God will be dealing with the nations that don't know or honor Him.  The whole earth will feel the effects of it, including His children.  We are not and won't be helpless, though.  The same Spirit Who raised Christ from the dead lives in us to power us through to the end.  To give us the courage to speak the word of our testimony, covered by the blood, knowing that death is gain.  Our hearts must be so glued to His that we get it.  We aren't crying out, "Why do you hate us, God?"  Instead we will raise our hands and say, "Maranatha!  Come Lord Jesus, come!"

Jesus, the One Who says these things are true, says, "Yes, I am coming soon.
Amen, Come, Lord Jesus!   Revelation 22


 

PSALM 79 - Tough Love Might Just Mean A Ring In The Nose

We are a joke to other nations.  They laugh and make fun of us.  Lord, how long will this last?  Will You be angry forever?  How long will Your jealousy burn like a fire?  (Verses 4-5)

He was only twenty-two years old when his father, Hezekiah the king, died.  Hezekiah loved God.  Made it a point to serve Him.  Manasseh grew up in a God-fearing home.  So what happened when he succeeded his father as king?  Where did he go wrong?  The litany of his sins against God is really long.  He set up an idol to the sex god, Asherah, in the holy Temple, built altars to Baal, sacrificed his son on the fiery altar of Molek, chose fortune tellers and mediums to run his country and he took Israel with him into sin.  The young king killed many innocent people, filling Jerusalem from one end to the other with their blood.  "Manasseh has become more evil than the nations I cast out before him," declared the Lord God.  "I will bring so much trouble on Jerusalem and Judah that all who hear about it will be shocked.  I will wipe out Jerusalem as a person wipes a dish and turns it upside down."  The Lord was seriously angry.  But in their complacency over His seeming lack of interest in their rebellion against their God, the people continued in idolatry.  They needed some tough love.

God tried to speak to Manasseh.  Tried to chip away at the hardness of his heart.  But the king refused to listen.  Pushed the Lord's gentle reminders out of the way and led the people into ever more riotous sin.  Setting up pagan idols in the Temple of God and worshipping them there.  God had every right to be jealous.  Manasseh didn't grow up that way.  He knew better.  Maybe the constraints of being a follower of God were too much for him.  Manasseh wanted to taste the world...all of it, apparently.  But God...loved Manasseh.   How do we know?  God brought the army of Assyria to attack Judah.  Yep.  That's how we know.  The army captured, but didn't kill, Manasseh.  Two guards held the kings arms behind his back while another forced a huge metal ring through his nose then chained his arms behind him.  On the king's feet were placed more chains so that he was thoroughly bound and bloody when the Assyrian army dragged him by the ring in his nose through the streets of Babylon.  There he was thrown in prison, humiliated and defeated.

The Bible doesn't say how long Manasseh sat in jail before he remembered "the Lord his God." Hmm.  So...all along Yahweh was Manasseh's God?  The other stuff was simply fun...or interesting...?  Seeing what it's like to have a relationship with a sex god and the god of fire.  Wasting years of his young life and killing even his own children in search of the ultimate religious thrill.  How long did the young king marinate in his own stupidity before he looked up?  Don't know.  The point is, Manasseh knew who the real God was.  The only God Who could deliver him.  Who could take the barbaric ring from his nose and trade it once again for the signet ring of a king.  One day he swallowed his pride.  On his face in the filthy prison cell, Manasseh begged the God of his father to help him.  "Oh, God of my ancestors, the only true God, I was wrong.  Help me."

How long until God did anything about it?  The Bible doesn't say.  But what it does say is, "The Lord heard him and had pity on him."  Really?  That is the God I love.  For all my Manasseh moments.  However, it doesn't seem God rushed in right away and cleared up the mess.  Gave Manasseh a get-out-of-jail-free card just yet.  Because God loved him enough to teach him a lesson.  When the kingdom was restored to Manasseh, he wasn't the same profligate son of a gun he'd been.  Nope.  He ripped down all those idols with a vengeance.  Reestablished God as the One True God.  And all the people said, "Amen."

God is more concerned sometimes about our individual faith than what people say about us...or Him.  So the Assyrians laugh at God and mock Him under their breath as Manasseh is dragged like a pig to slaughter down the Babylonian streets.  God knows Who He is.  Isn't as worried about what the godless think of Him as He is about what is going on with his boy, Manasseh.  So, let the king feel the repercussions of life without the favor of the Most High God.  Let the boy call out to Baal or Asherah.  Can sex save Manasseh now?  Will the empty gods of fire bring him good fortune because Manasseh burned his child alive to please them?  He will find out.  Because I will wait until He cries out to Me.  God there until the perfect time.

It is love that allows our predicaments at times.  It is the paradigm of life without His hand that reveals the hand was there.  How long will we wait?  Until we turn our hearts back to Him.  Fester in the messy detritus of our own diseased hearts long enough to hate the stench.  To remember, like the prodigal son, that we were once loved magnificently by God, our Father.  To want with all our hearts to go home again.  To run into the open arms of the One Who should've let us rot there, but Who loved us enough to let us take the consequences of our sins just long enough to get enough.  The entire Assyrian army was assembled for an attack because God loved one very sinful, very rebellious, very wayward child of His enough to be tough with his mutiny.  May God love us all that way.  Because nothing is as important to Him or us as having our hearts and minds knit together with His.

 

PSALM 78 - He Wasn't Asleep After All

Then the Lord got up as if He had been asleep.  He awoke like a man who had been drunk with wine.  He struck down His enemies and disgraced them forever.  (Verses 65-66)

 In the wake of the disobedience of His people toward Him, God took away His presence from their midst.  Trouble befell them.  The favor the Israelites took for granted suddenly lifted and it wasn't pretty.  The shakina, God's glory, disappeared from their lives.  It seemed He went to sleep on them.

Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phineas were priests at Shiloh.  All three of them were fat, which in and of itself isn't a sin, but how they gained those unwanted pounds is what's important.  They ate the choicest parts of every offering together.  Lots of filet mignon.  The process for the portion of meat that goes to the priests was that when a man offered a sacrifice, he would boil the meat.  The priest's servant would then come by with a long fork and plunge it into the boiling pot.  Whatever the fork had attached to the tines was what the priest would eat.  The sons of Eli didn't appreciate their meat boiled.  Their servant would demand, "Give the priests raw meat.  They won't accept it boiled."  If the sacrificer balked, the servant said, "No, you must give it now or I will take it by force."  Both the priest and the one sacrificing were forced this way to disobey God.  And that made God mad.  He said they were worthless men who didn't know Him.  Worse yet, the boys were sleeping with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting.  Right in front of God. 

He'd watched it for years.  The priests and the people taking His presence for granted.  So God got up from what seemed to be His indifferent sleep and let Israel go out to battle with the Philistines.  Let them be slaughtered by the enemy.  Four thousand Israelites in one day.  Routed and bewildered, the army sent for the ark of the covenant which housed the presence of God in the shakinah glory.  His very presence is what they wanted.  Guess who carried it from Shiloh to the battlefield.  Hophni and Phineas.  Ew, boy.  The army gave a mighty shout.  God with them! 

The Philistines, it seems, had more reverence for the Presence than the people of God because they were afraid.  "Isn't this the God who saved these people from Egypt?  Woe to us!  Woe to us!  Who can deliver us from the power of this God?" But they took courage.  Acted like the real men they were.  Went out and defeated Israel and stole the ark of the covenant with the Presence.  The Philistines returned it to Israel after seven months because it turns out God didn't like living with them.  But that's another story. 

Hophni and Phineas were killed in the battle.  Eli heard about it and "fell over backward from his seat by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for the man was old and heavy."  The wife of Phineas was pregnant and went into labor early when she heard the news about the men in the family.   Her dying words were, "name the child Ichabod, for the glory has departed from Israel."

That's when it seemed God went to sleep.  Favor gone.  Had he forgotten His dear children?  God did let them have their own way for a while.  Let them understand their victories weren't because they were so darned smart, but because He fought for them.  Let them drink the cup of their own making for a while.  All the time God knew, though, what He was going to do when He came near again.  Samuel was already being groomed in Shiloh.  This priest would anoint David as king.  The shepherd kid from the tribe of Judah.  A great-grandfather of Jesus, King of Kings. 

I don't want to lose His favor.  I am quite sure I have no idea all the benefits I enjoy simply because God loves me and takes care of me.  What I do know blows me away.  To think that I could do things on purpose that fly in the face of His holiness makes me quake.  No wonder God moves away from such behavior.  Let's us take the consequences for a while.  Hophni and Phineas along with their dad made an entire army face defeat because the boys didn't know God.  And didn't want to. Even though they were the local pastors of the church in Shiloh.  They used the things of God, His holy things, for their own pleasure, discounting His very presence.  Maybe that is why it appears our God is asleep today.  In our society.  May we who know Him stay close and speak up because He won't sleep forever.
 

PSALM 78 - Flying Stupid

God led His people out like sheep and He guided them like a flock through the desert.  He led them to safety so they had nothing to fear, but their enemies drowned in the sea.  So God brought them to His holy land, to the mountain country He took with His own power.  He forced out the other nations, and He had His people inherit the land.  He let the tribes of Israel settle there in tents.  But they tested God.  Turned against God Most High.  They did not keep His rules.  They turned away and were disloyal just like their ancestors.  They were like a crooked bow that does not shoot straight.  They made God angry by building places to worship gods.  They made Him jealous with their idols.   (Verses 52-58)

Becky and Shawn fell in love during their junior year in college.  Since he was a kid, Shawn dreamed of being a doctor, planned for it, kept his grades on the dean's list, ate, drank and slept being a physician.  All her life, Becky loved to read.  Wanted to write children's books.  Maybe even screenplays for kid-friendly movies.  Several magazines already carried her stories.  She was well on her way to realizing her dreams when she married Shawn a week after they graduated from Stanford.  Medical school was next for Shawn.  They both knew the schedule would be grueling and the money tight.  Becky got a teaching job at a local Christian school, but it didn't pay enough.  She moonlighted with her writing and took a weekend job selling cosmetics at a kiosk in the local mall.  Two years into their marriage, Becky really wanted to start a family.  There was no way they could afford children, so she kept quiet about her desires, not wanting to overburden Shawn.  He had so much pressure from school.  And, besides, there wasn't any time for each other much less a baby.  When her husband was in residency, then she could let up.  Get some sleep.  Relax into a better life.  

There was a nursing student at the hospital.  Shawn thought she was cute, at first.  Nothing more until they began eating lunch together.  Then he would stay late to take her home.  Then he wasn't coming home.  Becky hardly noticed at first.  Her life was so busy making his life work.  That's why it was a surprise when he told her he was leaving her so soon after he started his residency.  Everything she thought they were working toward was sucked into a vacuum.  Vaporized.  Four years of her life, all that work for nothing.  She'd been thrown away.  All she'd aimed for gone crooked.

I feel outrage for Becky when I hear her story.  And I should.  It was she who made Shawn's schooling possible.  She took care of all his needs while he followed his dream.  Her desires took a backseat to making his come true.  He took it.  Then left.  For someone else to enjoy the fruits of Becky's labors.  But wait.  Before I get too ready to take aim at Shawn, I better look at how straight my own arrow flies. 

It is God Who made everything work out for His children as they left Egypt, crossed over the Red Sea on dry land, and made their way to the land flowing with milk and honey.  Look how many times these verses talk about what God did.  He led them, guided them, kept them safe, defeated their enemies for them, went before them to drive inhabitants out of the land He declared to be theirs and He settled them in the land in homes.  God did all that.  They simple took it from His hand.  Then got all fat and happy.  Great big grapes and abundant flocks.  Life doesn't get any better than this.  And they flew from one addiction to another, built up idols on every corner to worship in their salad days.  God who?  All the things their God made possible for them was taken for granted.  And it made God mad.  Like it makes me mad at Shawn.  Taking and taking.  Then loving someone or something else.

You could say that Becky and God knew what they were in for when they loved that way.  You always take a chance that love won't be reciprocated.  Becky should've made Shawn pull his weight.  But the promise was she'd have her time to pursue writing when he was a physician.  God's children promised to love and obey Him in their new land.  But their collective words were as trustworthy as a warped arrow that will always miss the mark.  They only knew how to take.  Felt entitled by the great love shown to them.  Wanting only more.  And different.  Anything to titillate the boredom of relationship with no thought to the cost of their relative ease.  And I am ashamed as I write that I have hurt my Father in this way before.  Forgetting Him in my need for more.  Wondering where He is in a ridiculous fit of forgetfulness concerning where's He's always been.  Fearing tomorrow though He's always led me just so I wouldn't be afraid.  Touching idols for the thrill of it when my God has parted my Red Seas and wiped my tears.  Tested His love.  Broken my God's heart with my hubris.

This is why I love Jesus.  I was not thrown away, but pursued in spite of the crookedness of my flight through heady air.  He grabbed me as I was shooting past Him.  Noticed all the kinks that made me wander from the mark.  Jesus took a carving knife and smoothed me out.  It hurt a little...okay, a lot.  But I was flying stupid.  My heart seeking the bull's eye but settling for the surrounding woods.  Jesus pursued me, His Beloved, when I simply wasn't worth going after.  Made me His again.  Now I aim only for His heart.

 

PSALM 78 - Dancing In My Dreams

But their words were false and their tongues lied to Him.  Their hearts were not really loyal to God.  They did not keep His agreement.  Still God was merciful.  He forgave their sins and did not destroy them.  Many times He held back His anger and did not stir up all His anger.  He remembered they were dust, like a wind that blows and does not come back. 

They turned against God so often in the desert and grieved Him there.  Again and again they tested God and brought pain to the Holy One of Israel.   (Verses 36-41)

I awoke at three this morning to a song of praise playing in my head.  Louder and louder it became a melody of my heart.  It actually pulsed in me so that I felt I was dancing before the Lord, twirling, jumping and leaping around, filled with the energy of my love for my Father as I performed to the ode to joy.  I have tears in my eyes even now just thinking about it.  I sensed my Father's pleasure with my brimming heart and my dancing feet.  I wanted to keep it up until I couldn't move anymore.  It was a scene playing out in my heart, but I believe my spirit was truly there because God's pleasure lingers even now.  It made Him happy.  It made me want to know Him more deeply.  In fact, my prayer was:  "I want to know You in a deeper way.  I want to know what makes You laugh."

Then the words of the psalmist this morning.  Reminding me that God feels.  I know this may seem weird to some, but when I asked that question, I felt very sure the voice of Jesus said:  "The same things that make you laugh."  Made in His image, indwelt by His Holy Presence, that makes sense.  Then I thought of all the things that make me laugh out loud.  My children at the dinner table...okay, sometimes they fight there...but mostly it's hilarious.  Or when we all play games together.  The antics of my grandchildren.  A really funny joke.  Irony.  Self-deprecating stories that are funny in hindsight.  The things that make me laugh are usually relational in nature.  I know the person so well that there are inside jokes or memories that we only have to say a first few words about before each of us is cracking up.  Like the time when the kids were little and I was trying to get them all ready for church.  I told Bill:  "Let's hurry up so we don't have to rush."  I knew what I meant.  But it was a ridiculous thing to say and it still cracks us up.  Our family has a million of these (most of which are about me) that still bring us to uproarious laughter. 

There are painful things, too.  We don't bring them up at all, if possible.  Better left under the bridge of forgiveness.  And, at all costs, we try not to hurt each other again.  We still stumble on it -- pain -- but it's not intentional.  In the prayer of Jabez, he asked God to keep him from the evil one so that he won't cause pain.  I completely understand that prayer and pray it often.  I don't want to bring pain to those I love, especially my Father.  I think there is the idea out there that God is a meany Who just can't wait to take a stick to our hides as soon as we mess up.  I am so sorry for those who don't know my Father better than that.  We are made like Him...He's not made like us.  God feels like we feel because He took us from the dust to form us into beings with whom He could relate.  Though God remembers we are dust, He didn't make us to act like it.  We were created to be His dear children.  And, He, our dearest Father.  Beloved and enjoyed.  To laugh with, cry with, walk with, eat with, joy with. 

I cannot imagine how I would feel if one of my kids shook his or her fist in my face and accused me of the dismal stuff we attribute to God.  I love my children.  Would give my life for them.  Just like He did.  Gave His life.  For us.  How could we forget that in our day to day, like the children of Israel whose hearts weren't loyal to the One Who'd worked miracle after miracle on their behalf?  I have grieved my God.  I know it.  Just like He feels what I feel, I felt His mourning over my sin.  I knew I'd grieved the Holy Spirit in me (Ephesians 4).  Like the perfect Father He is, He forgave me.  Disciplined me, too.  But He still wraps His arms around me because I am His.  Oh, the joy of that embrace.  Oh, the freedom of forgiveness.  It makes me love my heavenly Abba, sing praises to His matchless name and dance and dance and dance!

 

PSALM 78 - The Bread Of Angels

But the people continued to sin against Him.  In the desert they turned against God Most High.  They decided to test God by asking for the food they wanted.  Then they spoke against God, saying, "Can God prepare food in the desert?  When He hit the rock, water poured out and rivers flowed down.  But can He also give us bread?  Will He provide His people with meat?" When the Lord heard them, He was very angry.  His anger was like fire to the people of Jacob.  His anger grew against the people of Israel.  They had not believed God and had not trusted Him to save them.  But He gave a command to the clouds above and opened the doors of heaven.  He rained manna down on them to eat.  He gave them grain from heaven.  So they ate the bread of angels.  (Verses 17-25)

Can God even do what we ask?  I mean, we want some pretty big stuff.  That's a funny question when I think about it.  Of course He can do anything.  As He said in Jeremiah 32:  Behold, I am the God of all flesh.  Is there anything too hard for Me?  The question isn't can He do anything.  That is a huge insult to the God of all.  Will He?  Another question altogether.

It's in the desert they turned against God.  There was such a litany of miracles that got the children of Israel out of bondage that I wonder how they could've forgotten.  What was it about the desert that made them forget?  It's hot.  Very hot.  Sweaty and tired, caked with sand in their teeth and armpits, walking miles every day, the children of Israel got sick of it.  The grinding routine of the pilgrimage grated their sensibilities.  Most had only the clothing and shoes they were wearing when they escaped with no Macy's nearby to buy the necessities much less the latest fashions.  They had gold they could've used for that but it's useless in the wilderness where you can only rely on God.  They were thirsty.  There are no streams in the desert.  The refreshing of water is a luxury there.  But, most importantly, I think, is that they didn't know where it all led.  Began to doubt if this promised land Moses spoke of even existed.  The children of the twelve tribes listened to each other and to their own self-talk. 

I have to say, there's a really good chance I would've gone around Mt.Sinai as many times as they were forced to.  The walk to the promised land was actually short.  A matter of a few days.  It took this wilderness group forty years.  The fathers and mothers who remembered the leeks and onions in Egypt had to die off, though they ate the bread of angels and didn't know what they had.  But the wilderness is tough.  If you've been in it, you know what I mean.  Things that once prospered in life dry up.  When God was working miracles, everything seemed clear -- your faith and His power.  But then things got hard...for some of us, really hard.  No refreshing of great spiritual thirst.  Just walking in and out of days that make it nearly impossible to get up in the morning.  And worst of all, we don't know how it's going to end.  Where are we going?

Apparently, that is the perfect time to have faith.  To trust against all the odds that the God Who loves you can provide the bread of angels to sustain you in the wilderness you trudge through.  Don't say, "Can God even get me out of this mess?"  Your Father doesn't like that kind of talk.  If we have walked with Him for very long at all we have wondrous things to share about all He's done for us.  Stop and think about that.  If we are in the desert, He knows that.  Why?  Because He's there too, this God Who will never leave us or forsake us.  So we are to sit down in the hot sand and think for a minute about Him.  All He's done.  All He's promised.  All He's capable of.  Stir up our most holy faith and believe God for...anything.  God loves that!  His weary children asking for a drink and knowing His Father's heart will not deny us one.  Handing Him our hunger so He can provide in such a new way that we must ask as the Jewish tribes of old, "What is this?"  Manna.  They put the "what is this" up to their mouths and munched the bread from heaven. 

I remember in 2006-2007 my life hit a substantial wilderness when my constant question of God was:  "What is this all about?  Where are we going?"  In answer, my Father told me to trust His love for me.  In response, I daily said hundreds of times:  "I will be all right because my Father loves me." Many days I didn't feel that so much as I declared it.  Knew it was true, but didn't feel all warm inside with it.  Trusting Him who can do anything.  Though I didn't see a victorious way out, He did.  And amazed me, as He always does.  He showed me that I need to trust His love for me in the wilderness just as surely as I do in the good times.  And it's harder in the wilderness.  He knows that.  Perhaps He's watching to see if we will decide to trust Him to save us.  In the sweat and work of it, will we look to Him to lead us on?  Because when things are good it's hard to see His power...or even look for it.  But in the desert, where there is no water, He might just strike a bone dry rock and bring enough water to quench your thirsty soul.