Manna from Heaven

 In my quest to figure out what it really means to live your life for the Lord – what it means to live abundantly – the latest question I’ve been pondering is “What does it mean to live by faith?” 

I like to think of myself as a woman of faith, and even if I can’t quite define what that means, I believe that the fact I have a strong, active faith in the Lord as my savior qualifies me for the title.  But I suppose it makes sense that I’m struggling understanding what living by faith looks like when I can’t even define it.  Here’s a quote I appreciated from a book I’m reading, Streams in the Desert:

We must be willing to live by faith, not hoping or desiring to live any other way.  We must be willing to have every light extinguished, to have every star in the heavens blotted out, and to live with nothing encircling us but darkness and danger.  Yes, we must be willing to do all this, if God will only leave within our soul an inner radiance from the pure, bright light that faith has kindled (Thomas C. Upham).

It sounds to me like living a life of faith really doesn’t have much to do with how I feel about the Lord, or whether there’s some super-spiritual connection between the Most High God and myself on a regular basis, though I could be wrong.  It sounds to me like living a life of faith is a choice, or perhaps a series of many choices, to allow God to be our everything (see my previous post for my ponderings on that!).

The people of Israel, for example, had to live by faith when they were sentenced to 40 years of wandering in the desert.  They had to have faith that God could be everything for them and that He would provide for their needs.  Luckily for them, God provided for them regardless of how their faith was doing:

“He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)

What can we learn from this?  Let me highlight the last part of that verse for you again, “…man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”  I’m no commentator, but that seems pretty significant.  Living a life of faith, a life of believing that God is who He says He is, and living that life in such a way that your God is proclaimed to the world, requires more than bread (or coffee!).  It requires understanding that bread alone, or any of the enticing things the world has to offer, cannot get you through life.  You might survive okay.  But you cannot live without the words of God.

In light of that, let’s take this little tidbit beyond coffee and out into the real world.  When you wake up in the morning, do you choose to live your life by bread or by the very words of the Lord?  It’s really an easy question, but if you’re not quite sure, then let me restate it: Does the energy and ‘sustenance’ for your life come from bread (the world) or from the Lord and His word?

If you’re living like me, mostly by the bread of the world, then do you even realize that there is another option?  You can choose, daily, to live by the Word of God.  How exactly may look different for everyone, but for me, I have to literally, maybe even audibly ask myself how I’m going to live on a daily basis.  If the answer is by the Word of God, then there better be a steady diet of it in my day.  God has provided for us.  Just as He gave manna to the people of Israel, we are blessed with an abundance of His word at our disposal.  But it doesn’t do anyone any good just sitting on the ground.  We have to eat it.  Have you eaten yours?

'Everything' is a matter of perspective

This past week my running partner has been on vacation.  A crazy thing happens when she’s gone – I suddenly find that my motivation for running has…disappeared.  So I was pretty proud of myself this week when I got myself out there, pounding the pavement two whole times in the last 5 days. 

My second run was longer and provided me a while to think and talk with the Lord about my previous post.  In case you don’t feel like reviewing it, I expressed that I’m working to understand how, in a practical, day-to-day sort of way, God can be our everything.  We certainly know that He is more than sufficient to fulfill all of our needs but what does that really look like?  Anyways, this week I’ve been thinking more about that and thinking about what promises God has made that I can claim during this time.  What promises can I claim which will help me understand that (and live as though) God is my everything? 

Here are just a few of the promises God has given us:

He hears us (Ps. 34:4)

He is with us wherever we go (Joshua 1:9)

His grace is sufficient for us (2 Cor. 12:9)

He is our help in times of trouble or distress (Ps. 32:7)

He will complete the work He has started in us (Phil. 1:6)

There are countless others, but the one that gets me the most is that all-too-familiar verse in Jeremiah 29:11, “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not calamity to give you a future and a hope.”  As I was running and thinking about this it occurred to me that God has fulfilled that promise in Christ Jesus, for no matter what happens in this life, our future hope is secure.  Our future has been purchased by Christ’s blood. 

As I wait for my husband to return to me and try to think about how I can let God be my everything, I’ve discovered that ‘everything’ is really a matter of perspective.  I have to let go of the ‘need’ for my needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.  I need to let God be everything.  It’s a choice.  I can either feel sad, empty, unsatisfied, impatient, and restless, or I can choose to let God’s promises be enough for me.  If my both my present and future are secure in Him, then I should be able to be content wherever I am.

Let’s take this beyond coffee…Maybe it’s not so important that I feel happy and content.  Maybe I don’t really need to replace the loneliness of my empty house or the penetrating silence of every single evening.  Maybe it’s almost too much to ask that I somehow not feel sad about being so long and far separated from my husband.  Because what really matters is that God is still in control.  He’s faithful.  He has not forgotten, left, or forsaken me.  He has secured my hope on high.  I need to let that be enough…or get out of my self-absorbed little hole and understand that it truly is enough.