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I once worked for Youth with a Mission in Kona, Hawaii.

In a time of financial testing, food services devised a low-cost meal we called the manna menu that consisted of lentil stew and pumpernickel bread. We ate this meal for lunch and supper for about a month. It tasted suitable for the first few days, but eating any food repetitively deadens the palette. Also, this dish had gastrointestinal side effects.

Some of our leaders felt God had pulled the purse strings on the ministry because we were showing selfishness over our meals. Some at the front of the line took too much food while some at the end did not get enough. God used finances to get our attention.

Eventually, God released the finances, and we went off the manna menu. Occasionally, some still took more food than they needed at mealtime. Finally, someone would say, “Remember the manna menu.” That cured our selfishness, at least for a while. We instituted a manna memorial meal regularly so we would not forget.

God’s people remembered the good food they ate in Egypt but forgot the price they paid for it: slavery and ill-treatment.

We, too, often have selective memory. We remember the good but forget the bad.

God’s provision for us is not always fun and games. God has a reason for everything He does. Manna was plain, ordinary, and repetitive, but God’s people learned to live on what they needed, not wanted. They discovered we don’t live by bread alone but by every word from God’s mouth.

Are things that you enjoyed before salvation tempting you? Are you remembering the good but forgetting the bad? 

(Photo courtesy of pixabay.)

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