manna

Being in the desert is hard. Just ask the Israelites. They were there, in the wilderness, for 40 years (bear with me).

I often think about the Israelites and how similar I am to them. God delivers me from a place of hardship, and after a little more testing, I would rather go back to the first evil than face the current difficulty. Is this making any sense? Have you experienced anything similar?

Anyways, I was thinking about this same idea today and about how easy it is to worship God because of what I think he does or how I think he acts instead of worshipping him for who He IS. If I worship God only based on what he does or does not do, when a loved one dies from cancer, God cannot be who he says he is. When a friend hurts me and wrecks the friendship, God cannot be who he says he is. When a husband is unfaithful and tears apart the family, God cannot be who he says he is. When you have to spend forty years in the wilderness living on manna, God cannot be who he says he is.

And yet, God claims to be faithful, loving, patience, peaceful, gracious, gentle, merciful and unchanging. In fact, the very roots of our faith go back to and rest on the qualities that God says he has. Where does our worship go wrong?

Our worship goes wrong when we forget that God is who he says he is. Period. End of story. God IS faithful. God IS good. And although our world is terribly messed up and sinful, and although things like death and destruction take place, those things do not occur because God willed them to. Those things occur because sin exists.

So, praise God for all that he does, yes, but more than praising him for external actions, praise God for all that he IS- his heart! What he IS is unchanging, no matter our viewpoints. How we view what he DOES changes. I mean, look at the Israelites. One day, they are praising God for deliverance out of Egypt, and the next, they want to go back into the very place they came from.

Back to the blog title. Elisabeth Elliot says the following in her book, Passion and Purity: "Was it necessary for God to test the fiber of His children for forty years in the wilderness? Wouldn't forty days have been enough? The process must go on...and on...and on...Through affairs of the heart God uncovers our true intentions: 'whether or no it was in your heart to keep his commandments. He humbled you and made you hungry; then he fed you on manna...' But it was not manna the people wanted. It was leeks and onions and garlic. It was meat and bread, wine and oil- ordinary food...[The natural is not] the only thing God has in mind for us. We are not meant to live merely by what is natural. We need to learn to live by the supernatural. Ordinary fare will not fill the emptiness in our hearts. Bread will not suffice. We need extraordinary fare. We need manna. How else will we learn to eat it, if we are never hungry? How educate our tastes for heavenly things if we are surfeited with earthly?"

Friends, if you are in the desert and are feeling abandoned by God because of circumstances and contexts, cling to who God says he is. And don't be afraid to be hungry and thirsty; God provides manna when we are in the desert to see if we are truly hungry for what is supernatural. Come hungry. Come thirsty, "For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things (Psalm 107:9)."

We need manna, not bread.

struggle

Are you struggling this week? With friendships? With family? With sin?


Read this.


"My soul, praise the Lord, 

and all that is within me, praise His holy name.
My soul, praise the Lord,
and do not forget all His benefits.

  

He forgives all your sin;
He heals all your diseases.
He redeems your life from the Pit;
He crowns you with faithful love and compassion.
He satisfies you with goodness;
your youth is renewed like the eagle.

  The Lord executes acts of righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.
He revealed His ways to Moses,
His deeds to the people of Israel.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger and rich in faithful love.
He will not always accuse us
or be angry forever.
He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve
or repaid us according to our offenses.

  For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is His faithful love
toward those who fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has He removed
our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He knows what we are made of,
remembering that we are dust.

  As for man, his days are like grass—
he blooms like a flower of the field;
when the wind passes over it, it vanishes,
and its place is no longer known.
But from eternity to eternity
the Lord’s faithful love is toward those who fear Him,
and His righteousness toward the grandchildren
of those who keep His covenant,
who remember to observe His precepts.
The Lord has established His throne in heaven,
and His kingdom rules over all.

  Praise the Lord,
all His angels of great strength,
who do His word,
obedient to His command.
Praise the Lord, all His armies,
His servants who do His will.
Praise the Lord, all His works
in all the places where He rules.
My soul, praise the Lord!"

-Psalm 103 HCSB


You are healed. You are forgiven. You are loved. Be encouraged, friends. Take heart. 


Praying for you all this week!


-Kait

wholeness

This Christmas break is the first time that I have been at my new home for more than a week. It has been incredibly lovely and restful, but I did learn a few key things that I thought might help you out in case you ever visit me in the middle of nowhere in Colorado.

Here are 10 lessons that Colorado taught me:
1. It is not necessary to pack boots, scarves, mittens or warm cardigans when coming to a high desert area for Christmas. You will not need them and they will waste your precious luggage space.
2. Unpacking clothes and putting them in a dresser is very hard when you bring home more clothes than you need and when the dresser is smaller than you'd like.
3. In all honesty, it's okay to wear the same pajama pants all winter break in your own home, especially if you have a sister to borrow clothes from. You don't need to pack four pairs. And you certainly don't need to pack 10 pajama/workout/lazyday tshirts.
4. Even the longest and funnest list of to-dos can get bypassed when you end up realizing that you really just want three weeks of doing nothing and watching movies with your family.
5. Always use filtered water to make coffee in the morning.
6. Good luck trying to sleep next to an innocent looking 10 year old cousin. Chances are she snores louder than any grown man you've ever met.
7. Taking life slowly is always underestimated and always needed (trust me).
8. Even if you're a morning person, it's okay to stay up late and sleep in late once in awhile.
9. Skype dates do not measure up to real, face-to-face coffee dates. They just don't.
10. If the 'Christmas feeling' never comes upon your heart, that's okay.

And one last thing: Jesus came to bring peace. He came to make us whole. And take heart- for there soon will be no limits to the wholeness he brings (Isaiah 9). And until that day when the Earth and all that is in it is made whole, cling to the fact that His Kingdom is not just in the future; it is now. And at this very moment in time, Jesus can and will make you whole. Friends, let him begin the process of wholeness in you today!

And if you should ever choose to visit Colorado, let me know. I have many more tips that could certainly help you out.