Monday, May 18, 2020
God Provides
Even as We Near
the End of the Road
Nehemiah 9:20
You gave your good spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and gave them water for their thirst.
John 14:26
The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
Words of Grace For Today
40 years in the dry wilderness, God’s people wandered. Freed from slavery they crossed out of civilization into the barren land. Life became difficult in new and different ways. They had no water. They had nothing to eat. Then they had no meat. It did not take them long to complain that perhaps Moses had led them into the wilderness to die. When God provided water flowing from rocks struck with Moses’ staff it did not take them long to complain that they had nothing to eat and to blame Moses and God for it. God then provided again what they needed; manna appeared on the dry ground each morning for them to gather and eat for the day. It’s shelf life was only a few hours, so each day they depended on God to provided them again this wonder. Still it was not enough. They complained again, this time that they had no meat to eat. So quail appeared in flocks that they could harvest from for their meat.
No matter our real needs, God has always provided for us.
Or has God?
Millions of people die from lack of water. No rocks produce water for them.
Millions of people die from lack of food. No manna appears each day for them.
Millions of people die from lack of proper nutrition. No quail appear for them to harvest.
Millions of people are torn from life by injustices: roving murdering bands ‘disappear’ people, courts accept and thereby invite police and citizens to lie in order to destroy innocent people, advocates for human rights are detained, the earth is ravaged and those living nearby are left to die from the pollution … on goes the list.
How can we forget?
Yet we so easily, striving to gain just one more thing that we think we need for life, forget all the people that suffer injustices, murder, and worse.
We forget so easily all that God has done for us, like water from rocks, manna in the desert, quail that arrive on their own … our list could be long or short and yet we forget how God has blessed us and continues to bless us …
even if we suffer injury, illness and death …
even as Covid 19 challenges us in new ways to make sense of the world we live in and our role in the progression of time as it moves us toward eternity.
We forget so easily as we get buried under new injustices, new accounts of new threats to our way of life, new things that would kill us, or new challenges of all kinds.
Doch!
God does not forget us.
God does not let us forget.
The Holy Spirit, the Advocate, comes to remind us of all that Jesus has taught us:
The poor, the meek, those suffering injustice, the outcast, the ill and dying … these are the ones that God builds God’s Kingdom out of.
We receive all we need for eternal life, for life abundant now … for all we need is the willingness to give up everything so that others can experience that God loves them! Just as God has loved us.
We move forward in time, in step to the music of the spheres for the Creator of the Universe is for us, claims us, redeems us, and sets us free …
to be …
those that remember, trust, and share …
all that God provides.