In Exodus chapter sixteen, we read that the Israelites had barely been travelling for a month when they started to grumble and complain about their food situation. Less than a month since they experienced an amazing escape and miraculous victory (and surely it was obvious to them that they wouldn't be baking bread and eating stew in the desert) but nonetheless they started grumbling against God and hankering for the meat and bread of Egypt. It was at this point in their journey that God began to give them manna - miraculous daily food provision that sustained them for the next forty years.
Vast numbers of quail flew into the camp, giving the people the meat that they'd been moaning for; and every morning they awoke to find the ground covered with manna. They had never seen anything like that before. The word "manna" actually means, "What is it?" God used the manna not only to satisfy their hunger and nourish their bodies, but also to teach them two very important lessons about how He sees life. Those lessons were:
- the value of work
- the value of rest
Read on in the next two posts below for more about how important these two values are in the kingdom of God.
