All We Need Is Today's Honey Wafers

Manna. Manna is described as honey wafers. And...why does this stuff not fall from Heaven anymore? 

The Israelites were told to collect only enough manna for that day. Personally, it would have been really hard for me to not hoard honey wafers. Seriously. So, God explicitly told the people of Israel to only collect one day’s worth, except for the day they needed to prepare for the Sabbath. If they collected more than needed for the day, it spoiled. Built in consequences for hoarding out of distrust for ‘tomorrow.’

Yet, isn’t that the way it goes. We have the temptation to hoard, fearing not having enough for the future. We don’t trust that God will be waiting for us in the ‘tomorrow.’ We take matters into our own hands out of fear (which takes on the appearance of worry). 

For the last several months, I feel like I’ve been taking an intensive class called: “How to Live Day-by-Day.” From the moment we decided to leave Nicaragua, we had more questions and unknowns regarding the future than we had answers. Taking steps forward when you can’t see the future is, well, faith-building (and that would be the understatement of the year). I guess that is why they call it ‘walking by faith, not by sight.’ 

Over the last several months, I’ve concentrated on the verse of Matthew 6:34 which tells us to not worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will have enough worries of its own. Bite size pieces. Enough manna for today. Tomorrow will have its own manna. God is both in today AND tomorrow. Trust Him today. Trust Him with tomorrow. Don’t run ahead of today. 

There have been moments, throughout our most recent transition, when we HAVE tried to run ahead of God and find food other than today’s manna. Guess what? What we find is that the substitute junk food isn’t nearly as delicious as the manna God wants to provide. 

For example, several weeks ago, we started to get anxious about finding a place to live. We spent a day looking at apartments that didn’t come close to meeting our needs. At the end of the day, we were exhausted and discouraged. We repented of our ‘worry over tomorrow’ and focused on the ‘today.’ See, what God was asking us to do in the ‘today’ was rest. Rest. Not apartment hunt. Looking for an apartment, while not an unwise plan in the eyes of the world, was our attempt at hoarding manna for the future. Our motivation for apartment hunting was worry. Where do we go next? What should we do? Where will we live? But, at the time, our housing was secure for another few weeks AND we had an offer for ‘free housing’ if we needed it. We got antsy. We took matters into our own hands wasting what the 'today' had to offer.

I am NOT saying planning for the future is wrong. We DO plan for the future. I guess what I am learning is that when God asks us not to worry about the future—because He holds the future—it gives us a lot more peace, energy, and strength for the present day. I have found, as a recovering control-freak, living in the TODAY provides a lot of freedom. There is also tremendous joy in taking each day as it comes, knowing that God has provided the right amount of ‘manna’ that I need for the day while trusting that He will be in the ‘tomorrow’ as well. 

Perhaps our life’s circumstances of late have inspired our day-to-day living. Leaving one world behind in Nicaragua and walking forward into the unknown is not everyone’s story. However, we learn from one another, right? So, hear me when I (the hyper-ist planner on the planet) say…practice living in the 'today', being content with the amount of manna given, and trusting Him to meet you 'tomorrow'.