Looking for the Manna that is not a quick snack...

I have come back to these pages multiple times.  

I've wanted to write and have struggled with finding the right words.  

More often than not, I would find myself coming back to just remember.

Looking through old posts.  

Tearing up at pictures.  

Smiling at others.  

Absorbing.  

Remembering.  

Right now, my feet are propped up and I have a bit of pause as Josiah is making traps in his room. 

The masking tape is being pulled from it's roll at a dramatic pace and if the string doesn't trip up any potential robber who comes, then the tape will surely do them in.  

I've just finished some time with Jesus and have both a hot cup of tea and a coca cola nearby.  

The day is still young and I suspect that in a short amount of time, I will tuck this computer away and find myself in an active game of SLAP.  It's been a season of a lot of new things.  

Lots of changes.  

Lots of remembering. 

Lots of LOTS. 

Yesterday, I was talking on the phone with a dear friend and made reference to how quickly life can change.  Who would have thought way back in January that in August of THIS year, I would be preparing a child for school.  A child that my heart is increasingly melting for.  It wasn't even on my radar.  And yet, it was completely on HIS radar.  

So many changes.  

So many emotions.
So much good. 

So many of So many's. 

My mind is still continually here and there.  

Remembering.  

Experiencing the New. 

Embracing the little man in front of me.  

Remembering the many God sweetly put in front of me there. 

I wonder what it was like for the Israelites.  

Did they really expect to be released?  And when they were, what was their transition like?  

It says that there were times, they wanted to go back to Egypt?  Was that desire because they weren't embracing their present reality... or was it because their hearts were torn between the there and the here?  

I get that their reality was very different than my own. They were coming from a land of slavery.  

How many times have I wanted to go back to my own chains?

Enough to know that it is likely that the Israelites had more than a few times of wanting to go back no matter if what was never the right thing.

But a transition nonetheless.  And I'm finding as I live life that change has a way of tempting me with what was.

And yet every day the Israelites were given a gift.  

Manna.  

Last Sunday morning, I found myself at a hotel swimming pool outside of Chicago.  Josiah had turned the pool into the ocean and was both an Orca and a seal depending on the moment.  Between the splashing and the yelps from a seal,  I sat and cracked a book I had recently ordered.  

Awaken.  

by Priscilla Shirer.  

The first reading was about manna.  

Something God has brought me to repeatedly in this season.  

But as I read admist the spaces and yelps of an escaped seal, my heart was offered a perspective I hadn't yet thought of.  

Exodus 16:21 

"They gathered it morning by morning, every man as much as he should eat; but when the sun grew hot, it would melt"

The food that would sustain the Israelites on their journey had to be gotten.  There had to be an intentional decision to get up, get out, and pick up.  

At a certain point the sun grew hot and the manna melted.  

And if an Israelite chose to sleep in late...or opted to get distracted by a fun game.... or whatever fought for their attention.... they missed out.  

And woah... my own heart was convicted.

How many times do I roll over in the morning and start looking at my phone?  (Ummmmm...

nearly EVERY day)

How many times do I say good morning to Jesus and then start cleaning the kitchen... or throw clothes in the washer?  (enough times)

Or how many times do I get stuck in the busyness of the day where I forget to go back to the Manna and get my energy from the Food that nourishes?

The Israelites were given the opportunity to gather enough food to sustain them each day.
It required them to take the time to gather, to store, and to return back to their supply of manna as needed.

Jesus, help me to return to you more faithfully throughout the day.

Thank you that you give me everything I need to get through each day that you have organized and planned for me.