I think it's not by chance God has created us in a way that
we have to have daily physical sustenance.
The children of Israel, coming out of Egypt, lived for 40
years, approximately, on something called manna.
They couldn't have lived from hunting, and their lifestyle
was such that they couldn't be planting.
So they really didn't have an alternative.
God was, in essence, providing their daily sustenance.
And I think at least one of His purposes was to teach them
to remember Him, to think of Him, to look to Him, to have
faith in Him, that He was the source of their life.
He did it in the way of making it a daily thing.
They couldn't gather up manna and store it.
It would only be good for one day.
They couldn't forget who was the source of their blessings.
There's a spiritual parallel in our day.
We all recognize the need for physical sustenance.
Hunger and thirst remind us very strongly if we forget.
But the spiritual need for sustenance is equally strong.
It comes not in drinking water and eating food, but in our
constant, daily efforts of communion with God.
We ought not to think that we can go weeks and months
without spiritual sustenance and not suffer and not have a
deadening influence in our spiritual life.
Acknowledging the reality of our need for a daily spiritual
administration, or manna, helps us increase in our
courage to do the right thing and to serve others more than
we would have if we ignored God.
People sometimes think, "Well, those are such small things.
Prayer, immersing ourselves in the scriptures, pondering,
meditating--how can that really produce a significant
difference in a person's life?" But it does.
As small as those things seem to be--as daily, routine,
sometimes, they may seem to be--these are the kinds of
things that, day by day, transform us.