We Asked for Help. Then Questioned What Arrived.
Scripture: Exodus 16 & Matthew 20
When Knowing Changes Everything
During my 2017 sabbatical, I traveled through England and Scotland, walking in places where generations of Christians had walked before me. I knew some of the food would be different, and there was one item I was determined to avoid: black pudding.
Unfortunately, I had made one important mistake. I had heard the word pudding and assumed I knew what it looked like.
One morning, a couple in Scotland generously prepared breakfast for me. Alongside the eggs, carrots, and hummus were what looked like sausage patties. I started eating them and thought they were quite good.
Then my host, Frasier, sat down beside me and casually remarked that he had yet to meet an American who had the stomach for blood pudding.
I was mid-chew.
Suddenly, the food I had been enjoying became something I could not convince myself to eat. The taste hadn't changed. My understanding had.
Sometimes what is right in front of us can be difficult to receive simply because it doesn't match what we expected.
“What Is It?”
The Hebrews had a similar problem in the wilderness.
They had escaped slavery in Egypt, but freedom had not yet become security. They were no longer slaves, but they had not yet reached the Promised Land. Hunger and uncertainty began to take hold.
So they complained.
Then God provided food.
When the morning dew lifted, a fine, flaky substance covered the ground. It wasn't grain. It didn't resemble the bread they remembered from Egypt. They looked at one another and asked in Hebrew, man hu?
“What is it?”
Moses answered, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”
There is something important in the strangeness of manna. God did not give the Hebrews Egyptian bread in the wilderness. They were no longer living in Egypt. They were becoming a covenant people they had never been before, and God was feeding them with something they had never seen before.
The provision was real.
It was also unfamiliar.
When the Past Starts Looking Better
Exodus tells us something else about uncertain seasons. When the Hebrews became hungry, they began remembering Egypt differently.
They remembered pots of meat and plenty of bread. Somehow, forced labor, brick quotas, and oppression faded into the background.
Fear has a way of editing our memories.
When the future feels uncertain, even something that harmed us can begin to feel safer simply because it is familiar. We can long for what was instead of trusting what God might be creating next.
God could have scolded the Hebrews for their complaints. Instead, God fed them.
Day after day, manna appeared. For forty years, God continued providing for people who did not always recognize or appreciate the gift.
That is grace.
When Someone Else Gets the Same Grace
Jesus returns to this question of generosity in Matthew 20.
He tells a story about a landowner who hires workers throughout the day. Some begin early in the morning. Others arrive later. Some work for only a short time.
At the end of the day, everyone receives the same pay.
Suddenly, the workers who had labored all day are no longer grateful for what they received. They are looking at what someone else received.
Comparison changes the way they see generosity.
The Hebrews looked at manna and wondered why God hadn't provided something different. The vineyard workers looked at their pay and wondered why God-like generosity had been extended equally to someone else.
We can fall into the same trap.
We ask whether someone else deserves the grace they have received. We compare blessings. We calculate who has worked harder, sacrificed more, or behaved better.
Jesus invites us to stop keeping score.
Learning to Recognize Grace
God's grace does not always arrive in a form we recognize.
We pray for help, and what comes doesn't resemble the help we imagined. We ask for strength, and the answer requires us to admit weakness. We ask for clarity, and God gives us only the next step.
We want security, and sometimes what sits before us looks more like uncertainty.
Our first reaction may still be, What is it?
But perhaps that is an invitation to look again.
God's provision may be unfamiliar without being insufficient. God's grace toward another person does not diminish the grace given to us. And what feels strange today may turn out to be exactly the nourishment we needed for the journey ahead.
Grace is not something we earn by getting there first or working the longest.
It is a gift.
May we learn to recognize it, receive it with gratitude, and rejoice when God gives it generously to others too.
Reflection
Where might God be providing for you in a way you have not yet recognized?
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