What is it?

"The Lord said to Moses, "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, 'At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.' " Exodus 16: 11-12

When God led the Israelites out of Egypt He took them through the Red Sea and into the desert. After some time in the desert the Israelites started to complain. Let's picture their situation: they are hot, tired, hungry and impatient. I know that when I start feeling these things I am not the most pleasant person to be around. My husband has even said to me, and I quote, "I guess I need to feed you so you will start acting nice." When I get hungry I get unhappy. (Let's just add that to the list of things for me to work on!)

Of course God heard all this complaining about lack of food and how the Israelites thought they were better off in bondage to Pharaoh because they could at least have a good meal back in Egypt. Can't you just hear the complaining? Shows us how much people haven't changed in thousands of years. I hear people talking like that all the time, myself included! We want to make such a separation between ourselves and people during Bible times, but the fact is that human nature is the same no matter what century you stick it in. - Thanks a lot Adam and Eve!

Well, God was faithful to the Israelites because he sent them quail and manna. In the evenings quail covered the ground for the people to eat. In the mornings there was a flaky substance they called manna that was spread on the ground. The Israelites were instructed to collect the manna and use it to make bread. The Israelites understood the quail because they were familiar with it. However, manna baffled them. The word "manna" actually means "What is it?" Isn't that funny? These people were gathering up basketful's of these flakes and saying "What is this stuff?" Well, their ignorance did not deter them from trying it because they got busy baking it into some bread.

I think that it could be concluded that the Israelites were not the fastest group of learners. Their grumbling, lack of trust and disobedience to God caused them to wander in the wilderness for forty years. However, one astounding benefit to the Israelites' trouble is that we can take a look at it and use it as an assessment for our own lives. If we are acting like the Israelites and walking in our own wilderness of sorts, then we probably should not be wondering why!