Bible in 90, Day 06: Manna manna!

Exodus 16-28

One of the famous sketches from The Muppet Show was the “Mahna mahna” bit that’s featured above.  I like the jabs by Waldorf and Statler at the end:

“The question is, ‘what is a mahna mahna?'”

“The question is, ‘who cares?!'”

I’ve always thought it was funny they chose the non-sense word “mahna” for that sketch, because it bears striking resemblance to the word “manna” (pronounced MAN-uh) from our reading today.  If you caught the footnote, you’ll know that “manna” was a Hebrew word that basically means, “What is it?”  This of course was the first reaction most of the people had when they saw manna for the first time.  The phrase then became a word, kinda like our modern “whatchamacallit.”

Manna had no name prior to this because no one had ever seen it before.  Indeed, no one has scene it since.  It was God’s miraculous provision for the people of Israel for the duration of the forty years of wandering in the wilderness.

And it was weird stuff!

It fell from the sky and settled on the land, much like dew.  Each day when the people awoke, they found manna lying on the ground.  It was somewhat like bread, and apparently fairly versatile, for you could bake it our boil it.

“You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, sautee it.  There’s manna kabobs, manna creole, manna gumbo…”

Notice that each day, the families had to go out and gather enough for their household to eat.  No one got too much, and no one went without.  They also found out that the manna was a limited time offer: if you kept it over night it rotted and got worms!  Then, on Fridays they had to gather twice as much because they could not gather the manna on the Sabbath.  In God’s design, the manna would not spoil overnight for the Sabbath portions.

So, God designed a system whereby the people of Israel had to trust God each day to provide for their very survival.  We also see Him providing water miraculously throughout the wanderings.  Imagine an entire generation growing up for forty years where the only sustenance they knew rained down from God every night!  They must have had an enormous trust in God by the time they entered the Promised Land.

Why don’t we trust God like that?  I mean, in reality, we’re not that much different from the people in Israel.  Everyday that we have food to eat, it comes from God’s provision for us.  It may not be the miraculous manna from heaven, but it is no less God’s doing.  Yet, how often do we worry about not having enough?  How often are we afraid that we won’t get by, that we won’t survive?

My friend Daniel is a missionary to the Romany gypsy people in Romania.  He is becoming more and more of a gypsy the longer he lives with them (and such is God’s calling on his life!).  He shared with us during a recent visit that he has taken to eating one meal a day, like his people.

That convicts me.

I complain when there’s no sour cream for my taco dinner, which is my third meal of the day!  Sometimes we worry when times get tough that we won’t meet our bills.  If we honestly looked at our bills, we might realize that if we were truly in trouble we could easily drop the cell phone, cable, internet, DVD-by-mail service; eat out less, maybe sell one of the extra cars; shaving off hundreds of dollars of monthly expenses and still live like kings compared to most of the world!

Let’s take a lesson from the Israelites.  Let’s recognize that everything we have comes from God (James 1:17).  Let’s be thankful for what we have.  And let’s trust God to meet our needs.  In order to do that, we have to know what are desires and what are needs.  When we do that, we might be ready to let some of the desired things go, so we might help others by supplying their needs.

Originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 70: Got bread?

Matthew 16-26

image courtesy of holamaria at stock.xchng

An old man took a class that used some tricks to help improve memory function.  He was telling his friend about how amazing the class was when his friend asked the name of the course.  “I forgot!” he responded.  “Well use one of your tricks to remember,” his friend encouraged him.  “Good idea!  Ok, what’s the name of that flower that has thorns, and it’s red, and you buy a dozen of them…”  “A rose?” his friend responded.  “Right!  A rose!  Hey, Rose!” he shouted to his wife, “what was the name of that class I’m taking?”

How terrible we are about remembering things.  The disciples had just seen Jesus feed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, and the 4,000 with a tad more food on hand.  Yet, when they got in the boat in Matthew 16 and Jesus warned them to be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, their minds jumped to worrying about having enough bread for their journey.  Jesus had just had a run-in with the Pharisees and had this on His mind.  He uses the teachable moment to warn the disciples about them.  The disciples are obviously out of sync here, and when they hear the word “yeast,” their mind jumps to their lunch bags.

Do we have enough bread?  I didn’t bring the bread, I thought you were bringing the bread!  What did Jesus say?  He must’ve realized we don’t have enough bread with us.  Great!  We’ve got nothing to eat, what are we gonna do?

Jesus is a bit disappointed, and asks them if they remember how He had provided for them and the great crowds with virtually no food on hand.  Can you hear the sarcasm implied here?

You saw me feed the 5,000, right?  And then you saw me feed the 4,000, right?  So, why are you worried about the 13 of us having enough food to eat?  We had plenty to eat from just the leftovers from those two meals.

How quickly we forget God’s provision.  God gets us through a difficult time, and we don’t even think about it when the next difficult time comes.  He restores a broken relationship, but we think the next one can’t be saved.  This is why God calls us to remember, all throughout the Bible.  God’s people constantly recount the stories of the exodus, God’s giving of the Promised Land, and His bringing them back into the land after the Exile.  In the New Testament, we are called especially to remember Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, most vividly in the Lord’s Supper.

Let’s never forget what God has done in our lives.  Let’s be intentional about remembering.  Perhaps we can write down in a journal the faithful acts of God in our lives.  We can use times like Thanksgiving and Christmas, or other special family times to remind each other of God’s provision, grace, and love.  Let’s have the faith that God will be good today, just like He was good yesterday.

originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 63: Lions and Fires and Prayers, oh my!

Daniel 1-8

image courtesy of memoossa at stock.xchng

So today we covered about a month’s worth of Sunday school lessons.  We read about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refusing the king’s choice food so as not to defile themselves.  We saw Daniel interpreting dreams for Nebuchadnezzar.  We held our breath as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were throw into the fiery furnace.  Daniel had a sleep-over with some lions because he had prayed to God even though it was against the law.  We scratched our heads as the hand appeared and wrote on the wall.

What did that look like anyway?

What’s interesting to see is the confidence and boldness in these four Hebrew men throughout these various ordeals.  To refuse the king’s food was to take a serious risk of seeming defiant.  I’m sure that disobedient refugees were not treated well by the royal court.  Daniel made a bold claim that he could interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and had he not made good on his claim we know he would have died for it.  The penalty for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s allegiance to the Lord and refusal to bow before the image Nebuchadnezzar had made was brutal, yet they survived.

Perhaps my favorite moment of brash on the part of Daniel is in chapter 5 when he responds to Belshazzar’s questions about his reputation and ability to interpret the handwriting on the wall.  Belshazzar promises Daniel a robe, a gold chain, and a position of high political power in the land if he can interpret the writing.  Daniel’s response is quite forthcoming: You can keep your stuff!  But I will tell you the meaning of the words.

Um… Daniel… that’s the king

This was not the first king Daniel had ever tangled with.  He’d had dealings with Nebuchadnezzar, as we read earlier, and possibly two other kings whose reigns were fairly short.  Belshazzar was also not the last king he would deal with on not-so-friendly terms.  However, Daniel knew that his true King was more powerful than any earthly king.  In truth, the Lord was the source of the authority and power these kings had attained.

We don’t have to fear people either.  If we are in Christ, then we are children of the King of the universe.  No earthly power holds any real sway over us.  What’s the worst they can do to us?  Kill us?  That didn’t seem to bother Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They figured that God could save them from the flames of the furnace, but even if He didn’t, they wanted Nebuchadnezzar to know that they would not worship anything or anyone but God, even if it meant death.  We should serve Christ regardless of the consequences, knowing that either God will save us from the consequences, or that the consequences are not enough to keep us from being faithful to our King.

Let’s remember the example of these Hebrew men who were surrounded by a pagan culture.  Let’s not fear man, but rather, let’s fear God.  For man can only kill the body, but God can kill both the body and the soul (Matthew 10:28).  Let’s honor God, trusting Him to either deliver us from the fire, or to deliver us through the fire into His presence.

originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 41: That’s a lotta cows!

Psalms 45-69

*image courtesy of Thoursie at stock.xchng

We were driving home from a youth event in Charlottesville, VA.  It was one of those stretches of road that winds through rolling pasture land, dotted by the occasional barn, silo, or farmhouse.  As we rounded one bend, we saw a green hill with several black cows roaming about on it.  My buddy Daniel, who was the youth pastor at the time, said, “Hey look!  My dad owns those cows!”  The youth were incredulous.  “No way!” they shouted.  “Yeah, right!”  But Daniel insisted, “Yes he does!  My father owns those cows, and a lot more!”  I caught the reference right away, but he strung the youth along for about 15 more minutes before he broke into a small Bible study in the van.  It was a great teaching moment.

“…for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10).

God speaks to two people in this psalm, the righteous and the wicked.  To the righteous He commends their sacrifices.  But with the commendation He adds a reminder of His independence.  He reminds them that He doesn’t need their sacrifices.  God asks rhetorically, “Do I eat the flesh of bulls?”  (v. 13)  He is reminding the readers that He is not a man and does not require food.  Unlike the religions of the nations, the sacrifices the Israelites offered were not food for God.  The righteous are to continue in their sacrifices (v. 14-15), but not because God is reliant upon them.

Here comes some of that God humor I love.

God says, roughly, “If I were hungry, you’d be the last one I’d go to!  I own it all!  I could eat whatever I want to.”  God created everything, and therefore He owns everything.  Not only does He not require food, but if He did, He has access to all He could need without us!  The fancy theological term for this is God’s aseity.  That is, His self-being.  God has no cause or creator, He just is.  He is not sustained by anything (food, water, air, some other force), He simply is.  We, on the other hand, are contingent beings.  Our existence is contingent on something else (food, water, air, God’s sustaining power).  The fact is, we need – God does not.

However, this does not diminish our standing.  In fact, it almost elevates it.  In religions where the god needs sacrifices sets up a different kind of relationship.  The god needs the people, so he must put up with them.  The truth of the Scriptures is that God doesn’t need us, He chooses us.  He doesn’t put up with us because He needs our worship, He chooses to be in relationship with Him out of love.  Think about that – God chose you.  But, let’s remember that this choice is by grace, and not anything wonderful we’ve done (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Let’s live in light of this truth. We have nothing God needs from us.  He is not, nor will He ever be, obligated to us.  We owe everything, our very existence and its continuation, to Him.  Let’s honor God with our sacrifices of praise so that we might see the salvation of God (Psalm 50:23; Hebrews 13:15).

*originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 32: Someone drew at random…

2 Chronicles 7-23

*image courtesy of chutipron at www.sxc.hu

After many failed attempts to get into the courtyard of the Jade Palace, kung fu-geek Po finally succeeds by rocketing himself over the wall on a chair loaded with fireworks.  He manages to land right in the path of master Oogway’s pointing finger as he chooses the Dragon Warrior.  Oogway declares, “The universe has sent us the Dragon Warrior!” and celebration ensues.  Master Shifu, understandably, insists that this fat panda can’t possibly be the Dragon Warrior- that it’s all an accident.  “There are no accidents,” the old sage replies.

While the Eastern mysticism is a poor foundation, and terrible theology, Oogway’s declaration is nevertheless true.  As biblical Christians, we believe that there are no accidents.  God’s sovereign hand is at work in the world today, He is not a distant, uninterested God.

And so we saw today, illustrated in the story of the death of Ahab in 2 Chronicles 18.  This being the second time we’ve encountered this story (1 Kings 22), we should be familiar with it.  Micaiah prophesied that Ahab would die in battle.  Ahab decides to try and cheat death (and God!) by going into battle in disguise.  What’s worse, he tells Jehoshaphat to dress in his best royal clothes, which makes him a better target.  The plan almost worked, because the king of Aram had all his men gunning for the Ahab, king of Israel.   Then, the Scripture makes an almost humorous statement.

Can you picture it?

I like to picture stories as I hear or read them.  I always see this battle like a good war movie.  The fighting is intense.  There goes Jehoshaphat, almost defeated.  Suddenly, the enemy realizes they’ve been duped and it’s not Ahab.  They whirl around, trying to find their real target.  The camera pans about wildly, settles on an archer, and zooms in.  Dazed by the battle, he draws his bow and shoots it aimlessly.  The camera jumps onto the arrow, arcing over the chaos of the battle below, then screaming toward the ground.  The tip slides in between two pieces of armor on a random soldier.  Right at the moment of impact, everything slows down, the camera pulls back as the soldier reals in pain, and looks into the camera.  It’s Ahab!

Dun dun duuuuuuhhh!

Try as he may, Ahab could not cheat death on the battle field that day.  All his cunning and trickery was aimed at making himself a less valuable target on the field.  What he didn’t realize was that God never misses.  He used the seemingly random shot of an arrow to fulfill His Word through Micaiah.  What seemed like an accident in battle, was the perfectly timed and aimed arrow of the Lord.

There are no accidents.

Do we live like this?  Do we realize that everyday, God is at work around us, working everything together for our good and for His good purpose (Romans 8:28; Philippians 2:13)?  Seemingly random events are all part of God’s design.  Fractals, chaos theory, random chance – these are all God’s tools.  What should this do for our attitude when things don’t go according to our plan?  We should rest assured that God’s plan is better.  Paul wanted to go into Asia, and Mysia to preach the gospel, but the Spirit would not let them (Acts 16:6-10).  God had a better plan.  Perhaps you didn’t get the job you wanted, the job you thought God wanted you to have.  God has a better plan.  My best friend, Daniel, was all set to go for training to go overseas as a missionary, when suddenly he received a phone call that funds had dropped and they weren’t sending him after all.  He spent the next three years waiting on God to send him to Romania, and while he waited he became the interim youth pastor at my church, invited my wife (then girlfriend) and I to help in the youth department, and gave me my first taste of youth ministry.  I’m a youth pastor today, and Daniel is in his fourth year of ministering to the Roma people.

God had a better plan!

Let’s remember that there are no accidents.  God is at work in the world today, and he loves us.  Let us take every situation in stride, knowing that God is still on His throne, He is the King of the universe.

Bible in 90, Day 27: The God who cares about tools

2 Kings 4-15

*image courtesy of asheley at www.sxc.hu

“What do you want to pray about tonight?” I asked my 2½ year-old son.

“Umm… snacks!”

“You want to pray for snacks?”

“Uh huh, that God will give us snacks.”

“Ok, go ahead.”

“God, please give us some snacks tomorrow, amen.”

Elisha’s request of Elijah was that he would receive a double portion of the spirit that resided on his master, Elijah.  Second Kings goes on to relate the fulfillment of this promise by recording twice the number of miracles in Elisha’s ministry as in Elijah’s ministry.  Second Kings 4-6 shows us several, rapid-fire miracles.  A common theme throughout these miracle stories is that each one met a need.  These weren’t just flashy shows of the power of God in Elisha’s life, they met various needs in various ways.  Some were weightier than others:  we see a widow being saved from poverty, a son given, then restored to life, and a commander being healed of leprosy.  These were all dire situations into which God intervened.

However, several were needs that we might consider mundane: fixing a pot of stew that otherwise would have been thrown out, feeding a hundred men with a small amount of food, and getting a lost ax head back for a prophet who had borrowed it.  These might seem trivial, especially the last one.  We might even think them beneath God’s concern, and certainly His miraculous intervention.

God loves His children.  What is important to us (assuming godly standards of course) is important to Him.  This man lost a valuable piece of equipment, and worse, it was borrowed!  There was no running to Lowe’s to get a new one.  The man was concerned about his reputation and relationship with his friend.  Now, did he expect God to move heaven and earth, to temporarily suspend the laws of physics to bring it back?  Probably not.  Nonetheless, God cared, and met the man’s need.

We serve the God who even cares about our tools!

When he first said he wanted to pray for snacks, I thought it was silly.  But then I realized that my son had better theology than I did.  I had taught him that every good gift comes from the Father above (James 1:7).  He accepted my words as the words of God, as they were in this case(1 Thessalonians 2:13)!  So, snacks are good, God gives all good things, God gives snacks!  God please give us snacks tomorrow.  And God heard it.

And I’m sure He smiled.

God is our Father, and He is a good Father who meets our needs and wants us to come to Him with them (Matthew 6:9-11, 7:7-11; James 4:1-3).  He knows the little details of our lives, right down to the hairs on our head and he cares for us more than anything else in creation (Matthew 10:29-31).

Let’s never think that our need is beneath God’s concern.  If we are asking not out of selfishness, but in child-like faith, and according to God’s will, God will hear us and answer us (James 5:15; 1 John 5:14; Matthew 18:3).  Let us approach God with the simple faith of a child, humbly asking Him to supply our needs.

He will hear, and He will smile.

Bible in 90, Day 19: Right in our own eyes

Judges 15-Ruth-1 Samuel 2

*image courtesy of jeffphoto at www.sxc.hu

So that last part of Judges is pretty rough huh?  Did you find yourself reading and thinking, “How in the world could they do these things?!”  How is it that the people who not long ago were begging Joshua to accept their vow to follow the Lord (Joshua 24:19-22) were now killing, raping, mutilating, and generally running amok?  The answer is found repeatedly throughout Judges (17:6, 18:1, 19:1, 21:25) – “There was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Mark Driscoll talked about this in a sermon last year.  In that sermon, he said that without God, we are capable of anything.  He’s right.  The old cliché “But for the grace of God, there go I,” holds true.  If we totally abandoned ourselves to our sinful desires, held no regard for the things of God, and kept ourselves outside of the means of His grace, we might be shocked at what we would be capable of.

Oddly, it is in the midst of this period that the story of Ruth is told (Ruth 1:1).  In the original Hebrew ordering of the books of what we call the Old Testament, Ruth follows right after Proverbs.  Proverbs 31 talks about the virtuous woman, and then is followed by an example of such a woman – Ruth.  It is noteworthy, and speaks to Ruth’s character that her story should shine in the midst of the dark, perverse time she lived in.  Interestingly, Ruth is a not a Jewish woman!  The most faithful and noble character in this story is a Gentile!  Ruth has the honor of being one of only two women to have a book of the Bible named for them (Esther is the other), as well as being one of a handful of women who are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus Christ (The others are Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, and Mary – Matthew 1).

After this story, we are introduced to a new character, Samuel, and a new era in Israel’s history.  The wickedness continues into 1 Samuel, and is found now in the priesthood!  But God has a plan in place to bring Israel back to him.  We see the first peeks of this plan as God honors Hannah’s prayer and brings forth a very special son.  “Samuel” is Hebrew for “God hears/heard” and will be an ironic pun used later when God calls him as a young boy.

There are at least two things we can take from the theme we’ve examined today.  The first is that God is always working out His plan.  No matter how dark and twisted the times may get, God is still on the Throne (see Day 4)!  God kept enough people for Himself to maintain the holy line of the Messiah and bring about a beautiful story such as Ruth’s.

Second, is that we must never allow the culture or our sinful selves to determine our values.  Everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes in Israel.  How similar this is to our culture today!  “If it feels good, do it!”  “I’m ok, and you’re ok, and that’s ok!”  “It’s all relative.”  We do not live a day of firm moral conviction and undeniable truth.  We live in a day of lax ethics, uncertainty, pride, and selfishness.  We are not the only society to raise our own views and thoughts above everything and everyone else.  Rome did it, France did it, even Israel did it!

Let us never assume that 50% + 1 equals truth or right.  Let us never assume that our own views, formulated in the selfishness of our own hearts are the best.  Let us look to God and His Word for what is good and just, what is evil and corrupt.  Let us not do merely what is right in our own eyes, but let us walk humbly before our God.

Bible in 90, Day 5: … and other towns in Rhode Island

Exodus 1-15

*image courtesy of Czarest at www.sxc.hu

Did anybody else notice the change in pace today?  In four days we covered several hundred years of storyline, but today when we read 15 chapters we only covered about 40 years, and most of it took place over a few weeks!  And now we’re beginning to deal with the nation of Israel.  We also saw two big themes in our passage today.

Miracles, and providence.

Providence is God’s normal working in the universe, but particularly is used to describe those peculiar instances in life.  Some call it coincidence or fate.  The Bible calls it the hand of God.  Moses’ very existence is an example of providence.
By all accounts, Moses should have never lived past his toddler stage.  Pharaoh commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill any boys they helped a Hebrew woman deliver.  Puah and Shiphrah (which will coincidentally be the names of any daughters I ever have!) feared God over Pharaoh and did not kill the boys.  God providentially saved Moses’ life through the bravery of these two women.

Following this failed attempt to limit the Hebrew population, Pharaoh next ordered that all Hebrew boys that are born be thrown into the Nile River.  Moses mother hid him in a basket in the amongst the reeds.  Eventually, Moses is found by Pharaoh’s daughter.  The Hebrew boy who should have been thrown into the Nile to die by Pharaoh’s order was now fished out of the Nile to be rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter.  Not only was he saved, but Moses’ mother ends up nursing him and getting paid for it by Pharoah’s daughter!  This man should have never seen his first birthday, and instead, he lives to be 120 years old and one of the greatest prophets ever to live.

Providence!