The wilderness

The wilderness stretched out in front of the people of Israel for miles, as they walked through the desert on their way from Egypt to the Promised Land.  It was harsh, empty and cold at night, and it was hot during the day, but there was no alternative. In the wilderness, they were to learn to observe the word of God, and not to observe everything else around them. It was a place that tested their hearts to see whether they would obey God's Word. In the wilderness, God gave them manna they didn’t know so they would come to understand they could not live on the bread they already knew. To see that the things of this world, that they knew, were not what gave them life. The Manna was a type of Jesus Christ. It was free, pure, from heaven and tasted good, but it had to be gathered daily and eaten daily to be enjoyed. As they picked up Manna every day, they learned to obey and they learned to trust God. They learned to do things Gods way and they learned to do the difficult. When they came out of Egypt as slaves, they thought of themselves as poor, man dependent, and bound by natural limitations but as they learned to walk in God's ways they learned that they were wealthy enough, to have a day off every week, that dependence upon God meant the impossible could happen and that God can remove human limitations.

Friend, like the Israelites we have to learn that Gods ways are different. We need to learn that he is for us and leading us into a life of unrestricted, heaven-sent, limitless possibilities.