Many people do not see the value of reading the Old Testament. I am persuaded that the Old Testament is a great way to learn about how God works with people of different times and cultures. When I first started reading the Bible years ago, all I saw was a vengeful, judgmental God, especially in the Old Testament. But as I read more, I began to see a consistent message: our Creator is a God of redemption. By that I mean He is always seeking to save us from the calamity we tend to bring upon ourselves.
Much of the Old Testament is a history of the people God chose to be a light of His love to the world. God’s dealings with them illustrate not only the holiness and power of God but also His tenderness and devotion toward His people. Carefully reading the Old Testament from the perspective of God’s people provides a clear illustration that God is for people whose hearts are set on Him. If we avoid the Old Testament, we miss how it frequently illustrates truths we fail to connect with from the New Testament.
One such example is Jesus’ phrase in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:11 NIV: “Give us today our daily bread.” This daily bread Jesus referred to has an Old Testament connection that every Jewish person in Jesus’ time would have thought of when He said this.
As Israel left Egypt, they travelled through desert regions as strangers and sojourners where food would not grow, even if they were not constantly on the move. They had herds and cattle that also required food. The people complained about the lack of food. They remembered the leeks and other delicacies they had access to in Egypt, and they wanted to return to the familiar. What the Israelites so soon seemed to forget is that in Egypt, they were slaves. They were abused, worked to death, and dealt with as property. God set them free through the demonstration of His power. God humiliated Egypt and her gods with an open display of power never seen at any time in history before or since.
Daily Bread and the Manna Pattern
Exodus 16:11-26 explains that when Israel complained about the lack of food in the desert, God provided bread from heaven in the morning and quail at night. Every morning, the Israelites gathered enough manna for that day. On the sixth day of the week, they gathered enough manna for two days. God’s provision would not violate His Sabbath, as they were to do no work on the seventh day.
An interesting thing happened with the gathering, twice as much was gathered on the day before the Sabbath. Verse twenty explains that when someone gathered more than enough for one day on any day but the sixth day, it became filled with maggots and began to smell. However, they gathered enough manna for two days on the sixth day, and the manna was good for two days.
Exodus 16:35 says God provided manna for the entire 40 years that Israel wandered in the desert. Like clockwork, every morning they gathered manna. Every sixth day, they gathered a double portion, and it did not spoil on the seventh day.
There are lessons for us in this provision. While God desired to move Israel into the promised land, they failed to enter due to unbelief. God did not give up on the nation. He preserved the nation for forty years as those who were unfaithful died off. Imagine being that second generation. The second generation, many of whom were children when God delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage, saw the failure of the generation before them. They also saw God’s daily provision in the desert for forty years.
Gathering God’s Provision Today
I have been struck at times by how God still gives us daily bread. The nation of Israel was alone, without an ally, and needed to feed as many as two million people or more as they wandered in the wilderness. One of their primary needs was physical sustenance. Most of us in today’s America do not have such a desperate need for food, though hunger is not foreign to many who live here. We can easily miss God’s daily provision because it is not in the form we expect. What God did for Israel physically, He does for us spiritually.
God gives us peace when we face difficult circumstances. He gives us reassurance when we feel like a failure. He sustains our bodies in sickness and gives us wisdom when we are bewildered. He lights the way before us when making difficult decisions.
It is easy to look at our lives during tough times and feel that God has left us alone, that He is on vacation somewhere as we are stressed and our character is being tested. But if we are honest and look at our lives objectively, we will see God was only letting the crock pot work of life experience. We want to see our tough times resolved, but we often fail to realize God is working on our character in those hard times. It is His way to bring us through trials, making us more spiritually mature and more like Jesus in our lives here on earth.
There have been times in my life when I needed God’s grace and peace just to make it through the morning. Then I needed another fresh infusion of His presence to make it to evening. He has not always immediately changed my circumstances, but He has always given me His presence, and with His presence has come His peace. This provision of what we need in each moment is God’s manna for our modern lives. But if we fail to go out and gather the manna, we will miss out on enjoying God’s provision.
Walking in His Provision
What do you and I need today? God desires a personal relationship with you and me. He desires to give you what you need each moment. The line in the Lord’s prayer that says, “Give us today our daily bread,” is not just referring to physical bread. It refers to everything God provides us daily.
How do we walk in His provision? First, understand that we do not need to fix ourselves before we go to God with our life issues. We can be honest with God about our pain, our frustrations, and problems, while revering Him for who He is.
Another action we can take is to express gratitude to Him and worship Him. It is in the hard times that we most need to focus on God’s exaltedness. When we get our eyes off our own suffering and difficult times, we make room in our spirit for God to give us what we need.
Becoming familiar with God’s word is a long-term solution for our temporary challenges. We get to know God through His word, through learning from other believers, and from our experience in walking through life with God within us. God invites us to come before Him in boldness to receive His mercy and find grace for today, Hebrews 4:16.
Israel needed their physical needs met, so God gave them food. The needs you and I experience are usually less obvious but are no less real. Just as surely as God provided for Israel through their forty years of wilderness wanderings, He is willing and able to meet our needs in this modern age.
God has given us many illustrations in the Old Testament of what He provides for us as New Testament strangers and sojourners. We tend to think of the Old Testament as only history or religious rules, but God is telling us through the power of illustration that He is available to meet our daily needs.
