Yay! I am almost finished with my next book. It will be released just in time for Valentine’s Day…if you need a gift idea. Wink. (I know, shameless plug) However, in the writing of it, the Lord and I have been having some weighty conversations about journeying with Him. It has been soul-boosting to revisit the testimonies of how God spoke, how He provided; how He loved me and my family in really hard and scary times, but also in wonderful times. That’s the good stuff.
But here’s the rub. In my note-taking over the years, I have written long, developed ideas and thoughts. I also have one-word entries. There is a partial verse or phrase from a song. A couple of words to describe something I saw: butterfly bush. No explanations. Just the words or phrases.
I’ve written them down to capture the story of what the Lord said or the lesson I learned. I planned to go back to these prompts and write them completely later, fully confident that I would remember the story, based solely on these one or two word phrases.
To my surprise and sorrow, I can’t remember the revelation they were meant to trigger. It truly broke my heart. I apologized to the Lord when I realized my folly.
As I went to bed that night, I told Him I was so sorry; I felt like I had dropped the ball; I had squandered the revelation somehow. The passage about Samuel not letting “a word of the Lord fall to the ground” swirled around my head. Ohhhhh Lord. Help me carry your words well, I prayed.
I went to sleep and I thanked the Lord for His forgiveness and resolved to do better going forward. When I woke up the next day, my spirit was buzzing. I recalled this whole conversation with the Lord.
He told me my notes were like manna.
That only made me feel worse! “Lord, the manna rotted. Is that what I did?? I let the manna rot? I asked. No, He said. Whew…
The Lord said He fed his children manna in the desert day by day. In the same way, He fed me manna in the little notes, pictures, phrases, and scriptures. He said I may not be able to remember what they mean now, but He had indeed fed me day by day.
“It was heavenly food to nourish you for that need for that day. ” He said.
Ah, in the same way I don’t remember every dish and every meal, I know I never went hungry. Got it. “So then why did the manna rot?” I asked Him
The Lord said the manna, then and now, was for our daily consumption We were to daily feast on His Heavenly Provision. In the desert, the Israelites couldn’t store it up because when the manna stayed too long on the ground or in their jars it rotted from the corruption of the world.
God explained the same is true today. We can’t store up manna for ourselves for tomorrow and beyond. We have to eat it when it is given to absorb the nutrients of intimacy and revelation. Otherwise, it gets corrupted by the world system of doubt and unbelief.
Heaven is being released in ways that must be received in the moment, day by day. Trying to put it off or grab extra for later corrupts or contaminates it. This is a heavy thought.
I asked Him, how do we carry Heavenly Provision well?
He said the only way that His manna could be multiplied was through us. We feed on His revelations, kisses, and provision. His heavenly presence comes into us, nourishes us, gives us spiritual energy, and then we turn and release that to others through our love and actions.
In a word, we are what we eat. So then Jesus, give us this day our daily bread. Selah.