When is it right to wonder if God can actually provide for our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs? Is there a problem too big for God to deal with? Could there ever be a time when it would be acceptable to believe that what God tells us to do simply cannot be done because of the life circumstances that we find ourselves in?In the eleventh chapter of the book of Numbers, we find the astounding account of God’s meat provisions for the Israelites in the wilderness.
Recall that the Israelites wept and said, “Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna” (Num. 11:4,5). The cry came from every tent and Moses was overwhelmed. To God he asked, “Where am I to get meat to give to all this people?” (v.13). The question’s result was God’s command to have the people consecrated because the very next day He would send them meat – enough meat to feed every man, woman, and child for an entire month (vv.18-20). Moses found this to be logistically impossible. “The people, among whom I am, are 600,000 on foot; yet You have said, ‘I will give them meat, so that they may eat for a whole month.’ Should flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to be sufficient for them? Or should all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to be sufficient for them?” (vv.21,22).
The Lord’s response was both quick and a rebuke to Moses’ doubts. “Is the Lord’s power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not” (v. 23).
The final verses of the chapter record what God did. “Now there went forth a wind from the Lord and it brought quail from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, all around the camp and about two cubits deep on the surface of the ground” (v. 31). The graphic in the next column helps us appreciate the magnitude of God’s power to provide.
Let’s never shrink back from doing His will because the logistics of obedience seem impossible. God is always bigger than my fear.
Keep studying! DC Brown ©2012