We all just celebrated the most wonderful time of the year: Christmas. Parents lovingly shop for the perfect gifts for their children to open on Christmas morning. The unwrapping experience, though, can often feel more like a cyclone of emotions than the idyllic morning we imagine. While some gifts bring squeals of delight, others fall flat and may even elicit complaints that pierce a parent’s heart: “is that all there is?”

Though perhaps an unconventional comparison, the parallel between this example and the ungratefulness of the Isrealites right after God heroically led them out of slavery is striking. Just three days after they miraculously walked right through the Red Sea, they were already suffering from spiritual amnesia, griping about not having water. Despite the distrusting posture of their hearts, God graciously met their need. He also supplied them with food. Not just any food…He divinely sent them bread from heaven that tasted like holy honey: manna.

The Isrealites woke up every morning to a fresh covering of manna that had fallen like rain the night before. It sustained them with everything they needed for their journey. However, after a while, they began to crave something greater and heedlessly wailed, “we never see anything but this manna!” (Numbers 11:6).

It’s easy to judge the Isrealites for their ingratitude at this moment: Are they seriously concerned with their “food preference” when they have a front row seat to the miraculous provision of God every morning? 

But don’t we do the exact same thing in our own lives? Don’t we all ignorantly cry out to God about our preferred circumstances? Don’t we too easily forget the ways He has provided for us just because this one moment doesn’t look or feel how we want it to? Like a grumbling child on Christmas morning, our definition of fulfillment sometimes overshadows the truth that our good, loving Father will always give us all that we truly need. 

So, let’s challenge ourselves today to lay down our dissatisfaction and instead look for the manna. Jesus, our daily bread and living water, provides us with a steady stream of all that we could ask, think, or imagine – we just need eyes to see it!