Lessons from manna...

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:

1. the value of work
2. 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.

Manna lesson one: the value of work

Work is an integral part of life. Many people see work as a necessary evil - something they have to do to provide for themselves and their families. But their dream, or maybe even their goal, is to be able to lead a life of leisure where they don't need to work any more. That's often part of the reason why people dream of winning the lottery and becoming millionaires who can afford to be idle. Maybe we even justify this position scripturally by pointing out that Adam didn't need to work until after he and Eve had fallen into sin.

But that's not how God sees things in the world today. He sees work as something valuable that can contribute to our sense of freedom and self worth. So when God provided food for His people in the wilderness (see Exodus chapter 16), He didn't ship it in and distribute it around like we see happen today in so many refugee camps. No, He sent the people out to work for it: they had to go outside the camp and gather as much manna as they needed for their household/family that day.

God "works" to sustain the universe and take care of people and animals. Right from these earliest times, He wanted His people to learn the value and satisfaction of working for what they would eat. He warned them that even when they arrived in the Promised Land, they would need to do a different kind of work to provide for their families. And in the New Testament, Paul tells the Thessalonians (2 Thess 3: 6 - 10) that, "Those unwilling to work should not get to eat."

The first lesson from the manna was that work is something valuable and worthwhile. But that vitally important principle needed to be balanced by a second one; read on in the post below for more about the second lesson from the manna.

Manna lesson two: the value of rest

In the post above, we saw that work is worthwhile and important in God's eyes. But some people make an idol of their work. We've coined the term "workaholic" to describe people who are so addicted to their work, so driven to achieve success in it, that their lifestyle is damaging to their health, their marriage and their relationship with family. Right from these earliest times (Exodus chapter 16) God wanted His people to keep their lives in balance and to see work in its proper place.

So the second lesson from the manna was about the value of rest. God explained that there would be no manna to gather up on the sabbath, but that the people were to rest and enjoy the provision from the previous day. (This in itself was a miracle, as they'd previously discovered that any manna stored till the following day became full of maggots.) Some people ignored the Lord's instructions and went out to work on the sabbath anyway. To their surprise, they discovered that there was no food waiting for them on the ground that day.

Speaking to Moses about this, God's response to this wilful disobedience of His instructions is a definitive statement on the importance of rest (vs 29): They need to realise that the Sabbath is God's gift to you.

There are people today, perhaps because of the restrictive interpretations of past generations, who see the sabbath as a duty to be accomplished or a list of stifling rules to be obeyed. While it's true that the sabbath principle was important enough to be included later in the ten commandments, we must never lose sight of the fact that it is God's gift to us: our physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing are closely linked to our embracing and understanding of this value. Wrong and repressive understandings of sabbath were behind many of Jesus' disagreements with the Pharisees. But a right understanding of this principle will help us live balanced lives that are honouring to God.

So, the way that God provided manna for His people was a vehicle for two important life lessons:

1. the value of work
2. the value of rest

Do we value these two things as much as God does? And are we careful to keep them in balance in our own lives?

Click here and also here to read previous blog posts about sabbath rest.

The octogenarian dancer

When she was only a little girl, she had been part of laying the foundation for the amazing victory that they now experienced. As a tiny child, she had tiptoed along the river bank, pushing the reeds aside and splashing through the water as she kept her eyes on the floating basket that held her baby brother. That little girl who watched the Egyptian princess lifting Moses out of the River Nile, and who shared a word of wisdom that led to Moses spending his earliest years being nursed by how own mother, has now lived long enough to see her brother fulfil his destiny and be instrumental in leading the people of Israel away from their oppression in Egypt. After a lifetime of slavery, now in her eighties, Moses' sister Miriam is finally on the other side of the Red Sea and has just witnessed the destruction of the enemy that pursued them. No wonder this octogenarian bursts into a song of praise and begins to lead the other women in a victory dance.

Exodus 15 verse 20 calls her, "Miriam the prophet" - the first time since childhood that we read anything about where Miriam was at spiritually. She's in her eighties, she hasn't had an easy life, and her prayers for deliverance have seemingly gone unanswered for decades. But none of that has stopped this woman from holding on to the Lord and growing into a "prophet" - someone who knows how to hear the voice of God.

There's an old axiom that says the hard things in our lives either make us bitter or they make us better. After a whole lifetime of slavery and oppression, Miriam could easily have turned into a bitter old woman who was angry at God and resentful about the circumstances of her life. Instead, she has turned into an octogenarian who knows the Lord and who worships Him wholeheartedly with song and dance.

In the video clip that I attached to yesterday's post, they may not have made Miriam look like a woman in her eighties. (Exodus 7:7 tells us that Moses was eighty and Aaron was eighty three when all this happened.) But the words of her song tell us something of the faith that sustained her through eight long decades in captivity: "Many nights we prayed, with no proof anyone could hear…"
With no proof initially… and yet Miriam chose to keep on praying. It's in the absence of objective proof, that faith kicks in…. and faith that endures prepares the way for miracles in answer to our prayers.

When enemies become friends...

The deaths of the firstborn, in Exodus chapter 11, must have been a real nightmare for the Egyptians, filling the entire nation with trauma and grief. And yet God says in Ex 12:12 that His judgement is against "the gods of Egypt." The people of Egypt were not His enemies; in fact we read a couple of time in chapters 11 and 12 that most Egyptians looked favourably on the Israelites and their God. But these dear people nonetheless paid a high price for their idolatry of false gods and for the stubbornness of their Pharaoh.

And so it's interesting to read that, when the Exodus began and the people of Israel began to flee from Egypt, they were accompanied by a whole bunch of non-Israelites who opted to leave with them. (Exodus 12: 38, NLT) Were they people who had already begun to worship the God of Israel? Or were they Egyptians who were still reeling from the shock of losing their firstborn children and animals? It's interesting to me that, even on this historic occasion of delivering His people from slavery, God is not exclusive; people are welcome to join the exodus if they want to. Right from earliest times, God has specialised in welcoming His former enemies as friends. 

He continues to do that even today. The letter to the Philippians speaks of people whose lifestyles and choices made them "enemies of the cross." But the letter to the Romans tells of how we used to be enemies of God, but can now be reconciled to Him because of the death of His Son, Jesus. We can become His friends. This amazing reconciliation is only one of the things we celebrate at Easter.

I don't know if you've ever seen the animated film, "The Prince of Egypt." Today I was reflecting on the words of one of its theme songs, where it declares, "You can see miracles -  if you believe." I made time to watch that particular clip in the movie, and I was amazed to see something that I had never noticed before. As the people of Israel begin to leave Egypt in the dead of night, there's a little scene where one of the Egyptian guards takes off his headdress and bows his head; then two other guards throw down their spears and join the hundreds of thousands of Hebrews who are heading towards freedom. At various points after that, you can spot an Egyptian among the throng that is beginning its journey to the promised land. At one point, you can also see two ladies in African dress, carrying pots on their heads.

In the film, as the Israelites exit the gates of Egypt, after 430 years of slavery, they burst forth into celebratory song in their own language, Hebrew: 

I suppose that the Egyptians who travelled with them may not have understood what it meant, and weren't able to join in the singing yet. They were only beginning their journey from being enemies to being part of the people of God. Likewise in our own journey, it takes time to get to know God and understand His ways; some things might seem perplexing or hard to understand at first. But once we take that first step; once we appropriate the sacrifice of Jesus and are born again into the kingdom of God, we're on the right track; we're no longer enemies and we have begun the lifelong journey of being friends of God.

Watch in this film clip how those Egyptians make the choice to lay down their arms, to abandon all that is familiar to them, and to join the victorious journey of the people of God.

Did you notice the point where an elderly lady stops and a little girl takes her hand to lead her forward? Just before this exodus begins, there's a touching interchange where an elderly lady says, " I fear I am too old to make this journey." And the little girl replies, "No one is too old for freedom."

It's easy for people to feel that they're too old to change their lives and begin a journey with God. It's easy even for Christians to feel that they're too old to go deeper and really pursue a close friendship with God. Let's take to heart the words of that little child: no one is too old for freedom!

When miracles seem slow to happen...

I’ve been reading lately in the book of Exodus, and this morning I reached the chapters where the Israelites - more than a million of them - have just escaped from Egypt and are slowly beginning their journey towards freedom. 

How long did they travel in the desert before they even reached the Red Sea? The movies make it look as if Pharaoh was hot on their heels within hours of their escaping from Egypt. In reality, this first part of the journey (chapter 13) was long enough for Moses to give them teaching about  the dedication of the firstborn; long enough to establish the pattern of the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night; long enough for God to explain that He was not taking them by the most direct route - in case having to face the Philistines in battle was too much for them and made them want to return to Egypt.

But finally - maybe after a few days - they do arrive at the seashore and set up camp there. And, as God knew all along, this is exactly the point where the pursuing Egyptian chariots catch up with them. As is often the case in life, things looked pretty bleak just before the miracle happened, and the Israelites began to panic and complain. “It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than to be a corpse in the desert,” they said. Moses had to step in and reassure them with these well known words :  

The Lord Himself will fight for you. Just stay calm. (Exodus 14:14, NLT)

I received those words for my own life this morning, as I continue to battle with pneumonia, and experience on top of that the side effects (leg cramps and strange muscular pain in my lower back) from an antibiotic that I was prescribed this week. It would be easy to panic in the face of medical evidence of the thousands of people who’ve experienced disability and had to undergo tendon surgery as a result of taking fluoroquinolone antibiotics. (Just google levaquin or cipro tendonitis, levaquin toxicity, etc, and the stories are pretty scary!)

Although I don’t feel any panic or fear, it would nonetheless be easy for me to get weary and say, like the Israelites: “It’s better to stay where I am; better to avoid international ministry travel than to have to put up with such debilitating lung infections and strange medical emergencies every time.” (Because the pneumonia has often been the trigger for some other bizarre affliction: in 2014 it was an accident that caused bad facial burns, and this year it’s this rather painful levaquin toxicity.)

But I refuse to resign myself to being a prisoner, like the Israelites wanted to do in the face of their enemy. I receive those words from Exodus 14:14 - that God will fight for me, and that I simply need to stay calm as I wait for Him to demonstrate His awesome power. There’s some truth in the old adage that it’s always darkest before the dawn. Wouldn’t it have been tragic if the Israelites had started to return to Egypt, just because they found themselves in deep darkness? They would have missed out on one of the greatest miracles in their history, and would never have experienced in their own lives that God really does care enough to fight for them.

What’s the situation in your life that would bring you to the end of your tether and make you want to retreat into slavery? (Slavery to worry, fear, discouragement or whatever… ) Perhaps this promise from Ex 14: 14 is also for you today: The Lord Himself will fight for you. Don’t panic, don’t give in to despair, but be still and wait to see Him act. If you’re positioned correctly (God had actually instructed the Israelites to “turn back and camp” on the seashore) you’ll be in the right place to witness God’s victory in your challenging situation. Take courage today.

Medical adventures

I was one of those children who was hardly ever ill. I hardly missed a day of school throughout my whole childhood and teenage years, so I remember it was a real shock to my system when, just before I turned thirty, a bad bout of whooping cough and pleurisy damaged my lungs, making me susceptible to bouts of bronchitis and pneumonia. The first years were fraught with bad infections that dragged on for six or seven weeks at a time, then it seemed to settle down: I learned how to live with it and how to "catch it in time," by taking an antibiotic before the infection sank too deep into my lungs. I was often able to go a full year without any infections, and when one did strike I was able to overcome it in just a week or ten days. Although slightly aware of my breathing limitations, I can honestly say that I've led a full life and have not been too aware of the illness preventing me from doing the things that I felt God calling me to do.

There seems to have been a change again in the past two or three years. I don't know if planes and airports now crank the air conditioning up higher than they did in the past, but I've been beginning to find that every trip represents a risk. Half a dozen times over the past three years, I've arrived home after a flight and come down with a bad lung infection - either bronchitis or pneumonia - that dragged on for several weeks. As someone whose missionary activities involve travelling to other parts of the world for outreaches or for speaking in training courses, this presents me with a real dilemma. I want to be obedient to God, but I find myself weighing up every speaking invitation because I know the price I might pay for it afterwards - partly in terms of my lungs, and partly because of the post-travel pain and stiffness from my arthritis.

My recent trip to Hawaii is an example of this challenge. Although I think the bronchitis I got there was caused by cold wind and not by air conditioning, I again find myself with a bad bout of pneumonia that stubbornly refuses to shift. After my middle-of-the-night emergency last weekend (see post for 27th March) I saw the doctor again on Monday and was prescribed a strong antibiotic because my lungs were still badly congested and I was having difficulty breathing.

After a couple of days, I noticed something very strange: even though I had been lying in bed all week (trying not to move, as any movement triggered a coughing spasm) I began to feel a sharp pain in my lower back, almost like when you pull a muscle doing sport. Then I noticed the same sort of discomfort at the top of my thighs and further down in my calves. Perhaps it was the Lord who made me suspect the strong antibiotics were behind it; I dug out that long complicated paper that always comes in the box and, sure enough, read that muscle damage and ruptured tendons could be one of the side effects "in rare cases." A little bit of googling on the internet revealed that there are class action suits (court cases) pending in the U.S. on behalf of more than three thousand people who claim that levofloxacin caused them to rupture their Achilles tendon and be incapacitated for months!

I was horrified and made an emergency appointment to see the doctor again that same day. My neighbour took me to the clinic and stayed with me, as I was feeling kind of weak and still coughing badly. Anyway, the end of the story is that they've changed me to a different antibiotic that I've to take for the next ten days. They hope the muscle stiffness will quickly go away, as I had only been taking the other pills for a couple of days. At the time of writing, I still feel stiffness in my back and in my calves. It's not excruciating, or anything like that, but I would certainly value your prayers that it will clear up quickly and not be the cause of any longer-term muscle weakness. (I already experience some stiffness and soft tissue pain from arthritis/fibromyalgia; perhaps that's what made me more susceptible to this side effect from the drug.)

In the meantime, the pneumonia is still a challenge: the coughing is exhausting and I can sense a "crackle" in my breathing. It's a little like I remember from my first lung illnesses in the early 1990s. My neighbours are checking up on me daily and bringing me food. I also have babysitters (furry ones) who watch over me when I'm lying in bed.  But I'd really value your prayers that this will clear up quickly and that I'll soon be back to health again.  Should you feel prompted to, I'd also value your prayers for wisdom in my travel decisions and for protection on my lungs whenever I need to travel for outreach or other ministry. Thank you and God bless you!