Enough for Today - Exodus 16:1-18

The Israelit­es are making their way across the wilderness. They have passed through the Sea with Egyptians and their chariots floating its waters behind them. They have ventured forth with the God of their ancestors, who has promised to lead them back to the land, which God had personally given to their ancestor Abraham and his descendants (who just so happened to be them). Even though God was in many ways leading them to the home, they never knew they had, in many ways, they are walking in the spiritual footsteps of Abraham, to whom God said, “follow me and I will lead you to land which I will show to you.” Stepping out into that wilderness and following a God they barely knew they had, who had done, great and sometime frightening things! But great things none-the-less.

God had sent the plagues, which did not end so well for anyone who was not a God-fearer. Then when the Egyptians had chased them across the wilderness, after saying they could go, God divided the water for the Israelites to pass through safely, but the result was not the same when the Egyptians attempted to follow them into the “dry sea.” But the end result was that the Israelites were finally free.

And there was much rejoicing (yeaahhh). But it soon stopped, they were running out of water and were getting mighty thirsty, and just in time they came upon some water, but it was unsuitable to drink, it was bitter so God made it good to drink, sweet.

Then, as they traveled, they realized their rations were not going to be enough to get them where they needed to go. After all it is hard to pack enough for a journey if you do not know exactly how long its gonna be. They are in a barren wasteland where food is scarce. They have not brought enough with them to feed them throughout their journey, and there seem to be very little prospects of finding food along the way.

God already provided them with water that was clean and sweet, but that is not enough when they are now hungry. So here they are somewhere between Egypt and the “land to which God was taking them.” And they about to run out of food. And this does not make them happy.
As they set up camp that evening Moses can hear the rumblings among them. As they settle down that evening with the last of their lamb for their dinners and eating the last of the berries they had brought with them, the fear and anxiety is palpable. The people begin to mumble and the mumbling turns to grumbling, and grumbling turns to rumbling. Why did Moses bring out into the desert? Did he do it, so we could eat the last of our animals and watch our children die? What the people are beginning to really wonder is “Is God really among us?”

Moses begins to fear that they are so angry that they may make and attempt on his life, so he goes to God with the problem. “God, these people might just up and kill me, if they don’t get some food , here real soon.” God tells Moses that they will all have enough to eat, enough meat and enough bread. God tells them that when they wake up in the morning, there will be bread laying on the ground for them to eat. When they poke their heads out of their tents after a good nights sleep, bread will be laying on the ground, with the morning dew. It will cover the ground all around them. And they are to each gather just enough for one person to eat each day, no more, no less. Each one will have just enough to eat for one day.

But that is not all, in the evening, just as the sky is going red and the sun begins to dip beneath the horizon, the encampment will be filled with quail. Everyone is to gather and cook the quail and fill their bellies before they go to bed each night. Enough bread and enough quail for each day, every day.

Everyone has just enough. No one needed more than enough. There was bread for one day, and quail for one day. God provided enough for each of them, each and every day. They were on the move there was no reason for them to carry around food they had not eaten, food that they did not immediately need. But they would always have exactly enough, exactly what they needed. Enough for each one, enough for everyone. And each night they went to bed full and satisfied.

At the hour of their greatest need the people are satisfied; satisfied in more than one way. Satisfied, in that their hunger is relieved and satisfied, in that their fear of dying is abated, in that are provided food, for everyone, everyday, but also satisfied in that God provided an answer their desperate question, “Is God really among us?” God shows them that they are not alone. They were not brought out into the wilderness to die, not by Moses, not by God. God is a God who will provide, exactly what is needed, when it is needed; enough for today.

Thousands of years of hind sight cause us to look back on the Israelites and call them, “silly.” Of course God would provide for them. Of course God did not bring them out there to die. That is not what God is all about. We know that is not WHO God is. We know that God would never do that to the Israelites.

“Those silly Israelites, didn’t they know that God would not take them into the wilderness and leave them there to be killed by wild animals, starvation or even thirst?”

“Don’t they know that is not how God acts?”

No they don’t. They don’t know God, not really. This is the beginning of God’s relationship with these people. They really did not know the one true God of all creation from false, capricious and sometimes vindictive gods, that were worshiped by the Egyptians. When Moses came to them to bring them up out of slavery, that was really their first introduction to YWH God, Moses has just introduced this “I Am” God. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Thus far they have seen that God is a powerful God, who could out magic the host magicians of the Egyptian court. This is a God who could call down death on their enemies and control the forces of nature, making a dry path through the sea. This God could take bitter water and make it sweet. They are in a land with out bush for berries or animals for hunting. Can they trust this God to provide what does not exist? Was this new God, still among them, way out here in the desert? So far God had proved to be faithful and true but they were still learning. They were still coming to an understanding of exactly who this God, the God of the universe, this “I am that I am” truly is.

It is the same with us. Sometimes we wonder, “WHO is this God we have chosen to follow?” When we are truly honest with ourselves each of us can find that there are times in our lives when we are just as unsure about God as the Israelites in this passage:

“Can I trust God?”

“Can I trust God with my money?”

“Can I trust God to meet my daily needs?”

“Can I trust God with my hopes? My dreams?”

“Can I trust God with my parents, my children, my livelihood?”

“Is God really with me today? Will God be with me tomorrow?”

“Is God among us?”

I can remember laying on a make shift bed, snuggled underneath a top sheet laying on top of a fitted sheet wrapped around a comforter in a tiny little one room apartment, with very little food in the cupboard. My computer was sitting on a box. My clothes were stacked in neat piles in the corner and my newly completed Greek homework was resting on top of my brand new seminary books, which were stacked on a bookshelf, which was one of few pieces of furniture there. Lying on that “bed” in the dark crying to God, asking God, “Why?” I had moved halfway across the country to attend seminary. And my life had almost immediately fallen apart around me. Here I was alone, hungry, laying in the ashes of what were my hopes and dreams, still slugging through my homework, beginning Seminary, because I did not know what else to do. I felt so lost.

In that moment I knew what it felt like to be the Israelites, as they made their way through the wilderness toward Mt Sinai. It felt like God had brought me out to this wilderness call the “Midwest,” a land that was flat and far from home and a city which simply was not a city, not anyway that I would consider a city, a real city. And I wondered if God had brought me out here and left me, not so much to die, but to fail, to shrivel up and live a shell of the life, I had once envisioned I would live. I wondered if God was still there.

It was not that God had not worked amazing miracles in my life before. It was not that God had not proven that God was trustworthy to provide exactly what I needed all along my journey thus far, but this time felt different. This time might really be the end of me. This might really be the ruins of my life, this might really be the time that things were too big for God; this time I really felt like there was no place I could go, there was no way that things would ever be right or good again. It had all come crashing down around me and there was nothing anybody could do to fix it, perhaps not even God.

There are times in our lives when we look around us and we wonder; “Where is God now? I am so lost. There is not enough money to make it the next month. I am thirty. I am hungry. Can God really be here among all this?”

These are not the questions of some silly Israelites who lived a long time ago and have nothing to do with us. These are our questions. This is the tenuous relationship we are building with God. Even when we have seen God work miracles in our midst in the past, when we come to this new thing, this new trial, this new fear, this new part of our journey through life, we have to learn once again, that God can be trusted. We have to learn once again that God does not, will not, forsake us or leave us. And it is ok, to feel this way. Each time we find ourselves in these kinds of places we will come a little closer to, become a little more confident in, trusting God. It will be just a little easier than it was last time. Each time we find that we are hungry, thirsty, lost, in need and cry out to God, we will find it easier and easier to trust and know that God is there, that no matter what is going on, no matter what we have done, no matter what life throws at us, no matter what kind evil befalls us, God is still among us and God will always provide exactly what we need, and in all things, when we turn to God we will be filled and be satisfied.