Today I linger in the rather new & fairly empty Tabernacle space just set apart in our home in Denver. A week ago we moved into our own home after living with friends in their home for 2 months. This completes a big move from Australia to USA. A new season has begun.
This morning the Lord had me meditating on this scripture;
“And He humbled you & let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your Father’s know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” (Deut 8:3)
The word manna means “What is it?” I have reflected time & time again as we have travelled this apostolic journey, how when we see something new, we do not recognize it & inevitably end up asking, “What is it?”
When God saves His people & brings them into His new for them, there is a journey that will be required. A journey that they have not known previously nor did their Father’s know. Such is the experience for every generation.
On every occasion when God has ushered us into a new season, there has been an experience of hunger. Hunger is in fact a sign of God having done something new.
Hunger results from not having what you have had previously. Where do we go when we are hungry? What do we do with the ‘fasting’, the emptiness that comes when God moves us? We will grieve & need to grieve what was lost. But where do we go to “fill up”?
The people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt. As God brought them out of that slavery, the Scriptures record that “He humbled them & let them hunger..” Transition & moving involves this. Whether the transition is moving countries as we have just done, or whether it is something like a job change, there is an element of humility & hunger.
What does God do with humility & hunger? He feeds His saved people on manna. It is so easy & natural to stay in a stage of rejection when God brings something new into our worlds. But that new is the very thing that will sustain us for this next season.
The ultimate purpose for why God does this, is so that we might know for ourselves that man does not live by the stuff of the natural world, the man made only, but by every word from the mouth of God.
The only way to move forward in the new that God at times thrusts us into is by His EVERY word. I don’t want to miss any word that comes from His mouth!
I was amazed this morning as I discovered that the Hebrew used in the phrase, “man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” means “a source, a gate, a spring; specifically from the dawn, from the rising of the sun in the east”.
The new Tabernacle space here faces east as did the Tabernacle in the Old Testament. The message is clear. The source for knowing, understanding & living with manna (what is it?) comes from the mouth of the Lord.
In the New Testament, it was expressed this way, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple & that God’s spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16) Therefore let us “look to Jesus, the founder & perfecter of our faith..” (Heb 12:2)