Heart Tracks - Kingdom Trail Mix

    In Psalm 78, Asaph recounts Israel's failure to trust God in their wilderness experience.  You cannot water down the words he writes, "They willfully tested God in their hearts, demanding the foods they craved," and that they, "spoke against God Himself, saying 'God can't give us food in the desert.' ", and that the people, "did not believe God or trust Him to care for them."  From the perspective of 3500 years later, believers tend to read all this and come away thinking, "How could the people do this after all the Father had done for them in bringing them out of Egypt?"  What is left unsaid is that we would not be guilty of this were we to have been in their place.  Yet is that really so?  In the place of our greatest need and most impossible challenges, in our own desert places, how like the Israelites have we been in our journey with Him?

    We have a remarkable ability to rationalize and explain away our failure to trust and believe Him.  We tell ourselves that it's not a matter of thinking that He can't, but that the need, the wound, the sin, has just gone on so long, been unresolved for so long, that it's just too late, it's all too far gone.  This is what the enemy of our soul will whisper to us in the desert places of our lives.  He'll tell us this as concerns our relationships, our families, our marriages and our children, and ourselves.  He'll speak it concerning our churches, ministries, and people, communities, and nations Christ seeks to reach out to through us.  We don't believe it's impossible for Him, we just believe that it's too late.  Verse 40 of the Psalm says that they "rebelled against Him and grieved His heart in the wilderness."  We would never classify our rationalizations as doing such to His heart, but how could they not?  Whatever ways we may try to "dress up" our unbelief, it is still unbelief, which is ultimately rebellion against His truth, and we grieve His heart in the wilderness He seeks to lead us through.  Too many times, in too many desert places, I have done this to Him.  Might you have as well?
     There's one more and greater matter of trust to look at here.  He will feed us in the desert place, but we must trust Him with His choice of the food and means of the feeding.  The Psalm says that the people craved meat, and "He gave them what they wanted," but to their own great harm.  In the desert, the cravings of our heart will come to the surface.  Many of them will be very impure.  We may crave an earthly kings bounty, but He offers us there what looks like trail mix in comparison, but it is a Kingdom trail mix.  It is His manna for us.  In John 4, before His encounter with the woman at the well, the disciples were hungry and went into town to find food.  When they returned, they offered some of what they had gotten to Him, but He refused, telling them,  "No, I have food to eat that you know nothing about."  As a friend put it, they went into town to find satisfaction at the local McDonald's.  Christ dined on the food of heaven.  In the desert, McDonald's will never satisfy, but His manna, made especially for us in that place, will.  Our cravings for the menu at McDonald's will be replaced by a hunger for Him and the things of the Kingdom.  Kingdom trial mix that yields His life.  Which menu is before us today?

Blessings,

Pastor O