Exodus 16:2-15

The headlines scream, all across the nation, "Stocks Plummett, Gas spikes," "Bailouts Causing Market Jitters," and "Financial Crisis No Longer on the Horizon, But In Our Laps."

 And how true it all is. The financial crevasse we have teeter tottered on since 9-11-01 is beginning to engulf us head first. As the U.S. government institutes a trillion dollar financial company bailout and Americans get set to suffer the increasingly high costs of everything from gasoline to groceries, the financial outlook of the average working family looks grimmer by the minute.

It didn’t look so good to the ancient Israelites either when Moses led them out of Egypt and they became lost in the desert wilderness for 40 years. Oh how they longed to be back at their pots of meat, eating bread to the full (Exodus 16:3).

The Bible says that they grumbled and complained, and in the Hebrew sense the passage more specifically means that they grumbled and complained all night. They worried, and wringed their hands, did not sleep, and were exceedingly alarmed at the dreadful calamity that seemed to lay before them. They were so frightened of the future, and so distrustful of Moses and God, that they even thought it better to have been struck dead in Egypt rather than set out on the pilgrimage to the promised land.

 And we too face this same kind of despair, not knowing what the future holds, but rather clamoring about in our own American Wilderness. The Israelites blamed their leader Moses, we blame our leaders. They blamed God, we ask God too, "Where in the world are you going with this?"

And the LORD said to Moses,

"I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.’"

In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp.

And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. (Exodus 16:12-14)

God provided for those quintessential grumblers and whiners, Israel, and God provides for us too. This is a promise that we Christians can trust, even in our darkest night and most barren wilderness.

Many of us may be so beset with worry and pessimism that we can’t see God’s provisions before us. Even the Israelites, upon seeing the Manna rain down from heaven said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.

It is that same spirit of pessimism that may cripple us from realizing and recognizing the bread that He will continue to provide us with, even in the darkest of times. It may come in the most unlikely of ways, and in the most unlikely of packages, but during these trying financial times, we Christians must always remind ourselves, as Moses reminded the Israelites, that God does indeed provide our daily bread.

And so we give thanks- not just because we can trust that God will provide us with what we need, no matter how grim we see the clouds gathered at the horizon, but that in whatever wilderness journey we are on, it is our journey to the promised land.

God didn’t just give the Israelites Manna and Quail, but he gave them enough of what they needed to sustain them until they reached the land of milk and honey. What God sustains us with now during difficult times is nothing compared to where he is leading us in the future.

 We too put our hope and trust in God for just such a bright and prosperous day and land as He is forming America to forever be.

Rev. CJ Conner