Daily Lesson for October 9, 2017

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 106 verses 14 and 15:

14 A craving seized them in the wilderness, 

and they put God to the test in the desert.

15 He gave them what they asked, 

but sent leanness into their soul.

There are two ways to be dissatisfied in this life -- to not get what you want, and to get what you want. 

The Israelites craved meat in the wilderness. They whined and begged for it. They wouldn't be satisfied until they got it. And then they did get it.  And they were full for about two seconds; and then they were hungry again.  Then they began to whine and to beg again. They could not be satisfied. 

This is the reason Jesus did not feed the crowd again the second day after he fed them the first. He knew they could not be satisfied, not with bread anyways. They would keep coming, keep begging, keep hungering and hungering and hungering, and keep being disappointed. 

The things of this world will never fill us completely. Not even the bread that Jesus gives can satiate our hungers forever. We keep being dissatisfied with work or with worship or with all manner of things churchly or worldly. The answer is probably not something different.  More likely, the answer is to learn to live with the hunger, the disappointment, the desire. 

For God "sent leanness into their soul."  

And leanness has something very important to teach us.