'What is it?' - The question to ask when trying to find God.
How to follow the breadcrumb trail into His presence.
In high school, I did cadet training. I enjoyed the break from regular classes and the adventure of getting out in nature. Once a year, we’d travel to a place called “Mount Disappointment” and hike around the bush for a week or so. It was a fitting name because those times didn’t always match my expectations. It would rain there a lot, so we’d get wet, cold, and often lost out in the middle of nowhere.
As a result, I learned the art of leaving a breadcrumb trail. Walking along, I’d leave reminders of where I’d been to avoid getting lost.
The real lesson was in learning to look for the breadcrumb trail and not miss it. It wasn’t easy to see unless, of course, you were looking.
Hold that thought.
I’ve always loved the Exodus story, and the older I get, the more I realize it’s because it’s the framework for everything that is to come later in scripture, but also for our lives. It’s the story of bondage and release, finding worship in the wilderness, and traveling to the promised land.
And again, when I was reading Exodus recently, I was struck by that story. But this time, it was because it made me think about the kind of God we have who provides manna in the desert.
In my imagination, I always think of manna as chunks of bread falling from the sky. But the reality is it was probably something different. The closest English translation of the Hebrew for manna is “What is it?” which I find fascinating! Translators have turned that word into “wafers” to make things easier to understand, which gives an entirely different connotation.
So picture this; each morning, when the people of Israel emerged from their tents, the ground was white with manna. In other words, covered in kindness from God, and when they saw it, they would ask, “What is it?”
