Oh the joys of a really good, meat-filled sandwich—now there is a satisfying meal. And places like Subway have been making it their claim to fame for years.

But try separating those two foods, so that you eat only bread in the morning and only meat at night. Not quite the same thing, is it? And it gets worse if this diet continues for days, even months.

Now imagine that the bread you eat when you arise is the same white flaky stuff. It kind of looks like frost and it’s sweet, but it’s definitely some kind of grain, although you really can’t put your finger on what kind. The best way to think about it is to put it in today’s breakfast cereal terms: It’s like Frosted Flakes. But even such a sugary daily dose of dry cereal can get old after a while.

Stranger things have happened in real life. Let’s look back. . .way back.

If we rewind thousands of years, we will quickly learn that this daily bread concept began with God and a cantankerous group of complaining and newly released prisoners.

Instead of being grateful for their release from Egypt, this band of Israelites railed against the Lord. Oh, sure, God miraculously released them from the hands of death. Oh, sure, He had been faithful to them by appearing in a cloud. Oh, sure, despite the extreme heat in the desert, they were still alive and well.

But thoughts of Egypt were on their minds. The good old days. Never mind that “the good old days” weren’t good at all; just familiar. And familiar can often be the preferred state—even when the familiar is very, very bad—than some new unknown that might, in fact, be very, very good.

They forgot who had just lead them out, apparently. Their Deliverer was now the Great Withholder. Listen to what they said:

“If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death” (Exodus 16: 3 NIV).

In response, God provided a real blessing: manna in the morning and quail at night. (I can’t say I have ever seen manna in the desert where I live, but I have seen quail. They really do run wild!)

Instead of being grateful, the Israelites look at the white stuff on the ground and say, “What’s that?” That’s literally what manna means.

It’s like what we used to do as kids when Mom made a meal we weren’t sure we were going to like. With our noses turned up, we would peer into the dish placed before us and before trying a bite, ask incredulously, “WHAT IS THAT?” There was no way we were going to eat that! Our question was really more rhetorical. We had already made up our minds and closed ourselves off to something new. We just knew we wouldn’t like it.

Same goes for those complaining Israelites. There what-is-that? response must have been quite the insult to the Lord. He probably wanted to say just what Mom said to us: “How do you know you won’t like it if you haven’t even tried it? Try it; you might like it.”

In case we think we overcame that childish response back when we were living at home with our parents, just know that the folks who asked that same question in the desert during Old Testament times were adults—adults who should be more grateful for provision that didn’t cost them anything.

The saying goes, “Never turn down a free lunch.” Well, what about free meals all day long? How about an all-day buffet? Not a bad deal when times are tough.

Yet, we can react the same when our vision gets clouded. When we choose to concentrate on the wrong things—like the things we miss from the past that God released us from—we can really lose perspective on the new and different things God wants to set before us at His banqueting table.

Instead of complaining that it isn’t what we are used to or it doesn’t look familiar, perhaps we should accept it with thankful hearts, knowing that God is, in fact, sustaining us despite our often faithless ways. He is upholding our health, our finances, our very beings while He has us in a season of transition.

And that’s the nugget we need to hang onto. That’s our manna for the moment.

— Laura J. Bagby