Walking Through Manna

When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor.  When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was.  Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. Exodus 16:14-15

Have you ever prayed and over time began to wonder if you will be answered? Maybe you have been praying for days or even weeks. Perhaps you have been praying for years.  

I wonder how many answers to prayers I have missed because I was anticipating an answer that conformed to my notion of how it should be answered?

When Moses and the Israelites were in the wilderness, the people had many complaints. One complaint was that God had removed them from Egypt and their fires, where they had lots of meat and bread to sate them. After 400 hundred years of praying and anticipating freedom from captivity and slavery, they were upset with how they had been released. Somehow the grumbling of their bellies canceled out that the prayer had been answered. They were free. However, all they did was complain and whine because of the hardships they faced.  

As I was studying this week, I found myself reading the Exodus story. The Israelites named this substance, described to resemble coriander seed, manna. Manna means, “what is it?”. I can imagine the Israelites strolling through the manna. They are looking up in the trees all around the camp for the promised bread. All the while, they are walking all through the answer to their request. Manna was not the loaves of bread they had expected. Instead, the tiny seed-like substance had to be gathered, ground and made into a porridge or cakes. God provided the element they needed to prepare bread.

Often, the answer to prayer is not the baked, sliced, and packaged product we think it should be. Sometimes, it is the pieces you need to achieve the request. If God did everything for us, what would we learn? Without a doubt, God could have left loaves of bread outside every tent but in the end, what would it have accomplished? Just like children with parents that indulge and spoil, the Israelites would not have respected, obeyed, and loved God. We are the same. Sometimes the answer is not packaged, it is the needed ingredients.

Are you missing the answers to prayers because you are trying to identify them in the way you think it should be answered? Are you walking all over your manna?

In Isaiah 55:8, we are told,“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  

We cannot anticipate what form the answer will be by relying on our own thoughts, but we must pray for discernment and grace to recognize the answer when it is given. 

Typist for Jesus