BREAD VERSUS MEAT: DANGEROUS MORTGAGE

Hello there dear gist partner. 

How e dey be? How have these first days of month been for you? It is my prayer that God will grant you the wisdom that you need to navigate whatever phase you currently are in. 

So, this gist is long overdue, I had been planning to gist this gist after our Esther series but then of course that became overtaken by events, any which way sha, welcome to today’s gist. 

So, I had been reading the book of Numbers at the time and something really fascinating happened: in chapter 11, from verse 4, the people began to ‘tire’ of manna and complain for meat. These people who had been out of Egypt for a while now and had experienced Jehovah Jireh in His magnanimous generosity decided that they didn’t want manna anymore and began to hanker for the meat, fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlics they had free access to in Egypt (conveniently forgetting that they had free access to slavery too along with their food) and were tired of “this manna” that was the only thing they had to eat. 

Interesting isn’t it?

And how does the Bible describe “this manna”? “Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like that of bdellium. The people went about and gathered it and ground it in handmills or beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and made cakes of it. And the taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil.” (Numbers 11:7-8 ESV) But you know what the most intriguing part of this food was? It was manufactured from Heaven’s Bakery. Exodus 16:4 records: “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” (ESV) This means that manna didn’t originate from the Earth, this was something that God cooked up in Heaven then served to the Israelites freely each day, all they had to do was literally go outside their tents and pick them up, not too much work now is it?

Interestingly, when I was reading the book of Numbers, I was also rereading Francine Rivers’ “Sons of Encouragement” and “A Lineage of Grace” around the same time (I’ve said this before but it bears repeating again: READ FRANCINE RIVERS BOOKS! All of them, any of them you find, just read!) Particularly the stories “The Warrior” and “Unashamed” gives some insight as to what went down in the minds of  people who ate of manna. I remember reading of Caleb’s dismay at the people’s ingratitude manifesting in their discontent with the food that God was providing for them which, though it seemed to be just bread, was able to cater to all the nutritional needs of the Israelites. But Salmon had such a wonder-filled posture to eating manna; he woke up each morning with such gratitude in his heart that he was able to eat of this bread that God Himself made specially for the people of Israel and was sad, as their journey to the promised land was drawing to an end, at the thought that their access to this food would come to an end. 

Isn’t it now interesting that in the same place where people had such reverence to manna, some others kept complaining for fish and meat. And as I thought on this, what kept ringing in my mind was “how many times do you exchange Heaven’s bread for Earth’s meat?” How many times do I trade Heaven-manufactured products for Earth’s concoctions? 

Of course it’s not food, at least not always, but how many times do we scrap God’s plan because somehow we’re convinced that the plans we, or others, have made sound better and seem to be better? We get it so fixed in our head that we know what will work best for us abd we have to do that because anything to the contrary will not be good enough, imagine such arrogance! (Don’t worry, I’m as guilty as you so I’m not judging, just stating facts) We become so wise in our eyes that God’s ways and His plans seem foolish to us and incapable of getting us to where we think we need to be. 

And no, I’m not talking about the big things, I’m talking about little things, subtle nudges that the Lord gives and somehow we just rationalize our disobedience, giving well thought-out reasons why our way is better than God’s way. 

But really is our way better? It can’t be, seeing as we’ll only be guessing probable outcomes of doing things following our plans instead of God’s, we’ll never truly be able to ascertain what our plans will yield in the future, we can hope for the best but we can’t command the best into being. But with God, there are no guesses, His plans are foolproof, only capable of bringing us “a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). 

You know another thing about mortgaging Heaven’s bread for Earth’s meat, the things that the Earth offers always has strings attached, it’s never fully good, it only has the appearance of good to “wash” your eye and keep you deluded, THERE’S SLAVERY ATTACHED TO EARTH’S MEAT, DON’T EAT OF IT! No matter how tempting it gets, keep yourself Heaven-fed, let your desires, decisions abd actions all be Heaven sponsored, no harm will come to you. 

May God help us to always prioritize the things He gives us over everything the Earth has to offer. 

TUNES AND THOUGHTS: the song I’ve been having in my heart has been ‘Promises’ by Maverick City. This song is a reminder to hold firm to God’s promises because we know that He who has promised is faithful and He will bring to pass what He has promised. It’s an invitation to remain stuck on God, to never stop believing and to hold firm to His word because He’ll never let me down. The lines that speak dearly to me, and have been doing so since the day we took my dad to the hospital are “I’ve put my faith in Jesus, my Anchor to the ground, my Hope and Firm Foundation, He’ll never let me down”, this has been my chant when the devil tries to mess with my head and bring doubts into my heart –I’m holding on to Jesus because He’s never let me down, and He’ll never let me down. I pray this song blesses you. 

Well that is that about that as far as that is concerned, till next week!

Love,

Achenyo wey get LL.B and B.L😉.