Daily Lesson for May 1, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Exodus 16 verse 21:

"Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted."

As the Israelites made their way through the Wilderness of Sin (what a name!), they learned daily dependence upon God. Morning by morning the LORD would send down manna, a weird flake-like, edible substance that Barbara Brown Taylor, a Southern woman, swears must have been grits. The people would then go out of their tents to gather their daily manna (one omer per person, for those of you counting out there). No one was allowed to gather more than their daily allotment - except on the morning before the Sabbath when they could gather enough for that day and the following Sabbath day. If anyone did gather more than was needed in an attempt to store or hoard, the manna always rotted in the hot midday sun. 

In the harsh wilderness we are sojourning in, where survival is difficult, we depend upon God day to day just to make it through. Daily contact with God through prayer and meditation is necessary in order to survive day in and day out. Provision for the needs of today is all that we can really count on.

To me, that's freeing. It means I don't have to miss out on today because I am worried about tomorrow. I wake up, I read the scriptures, I pray, and I go try to make the best of the rest of the day. And as Jesus says, I let tomorrow worry about tomorrow.

I recall a conversation I had earlier this week. A friend and I were talking about life and all its worries and how it is that responsible men like us are to not worry but to do what Jesus says, "consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air" and how they are provided for. It was then I remembered the second naïveté. The first naïveté is my 7-year-old daughter who hears that and takes it literally and at absolute face value. "The LORD will provide - cool!" But then the skeptic enters and says, "Wait a minute; that won't work. Lilies and birds do not live long." And then the second naïveté begins to dawn on us and it says, "Lilies and birds do not live long . . . but they sure seem to enjoy it while they do."

Let tomorrow worry about tomorrow; as for today - pray a little this morning and then go out there and make it a great one.