No manna on Saturday

Yes! A free Saturday. I wrote “WRITE” in caps across the square (Yes, I still use a paper planner) and looked forward with anticipation to the first free Saturday I’d had in months.

When the day arrived, I realized it wasn’t entirely free, as I’d forgotten Jeff had a fundraising race in the morning. So we loaded up, cheered him on, the littles and I ran the kids funrun, and we arrived home by lunchtime. I went for a quick run, got lunch prepped, served, and cleaned up, then took a quick shower and relished the fact I still had 4 free hours left in the day. Plenty of time to crank out some pages.

I sat down at my desk. Ahh…here we go. 

Nothing. I read and re-read what I’d written before, but I suddenly realized how mentally tired I was. I’d been speaking the past 5 weekends straight, and had several other items on back burners that required mental space. I realized that it wasn’t necessarily that my body was exhausted, but my mind was. I laid my head down on the desk and prayed, asking the Father to lead me and show me what to write.

All I heard was: Rest. 

Rest? Then it occurred to me as I lay there reveling in how good it felt to rest my head and close my eyes, that it was Saturday. 

Sabbath. 

Hm…

I quickly protested. But this is the ONLY FREE DAY I have to write! Have you noticed that ALL my other free time is spent serving other people??? I have to use this time to work. So could you please just give me some words to write?

I waited. I prayed. I waited and prayed and waited and prayed. I scribbled out some sentences that were terrible, deleted them all, and went back to waiting and praying.

Rest. 

And then thought occurred to me: There’s no manna on Saturday. 

Oh. You mean, that’s a thing?! 

Here’s what I mean: Jesus told us clearly that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. This rest-thing wasn’t something God dreamed up just to keep us under His thumb. He created it for our good. The whole point is that we need rest. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We were created to need rest.

And He illustrated this clearly for the nation of Israel by telling them to gather bread (from heaven!) 6 days a week, but the 7th day they were to rest. And just to make it clear, on the Sabbath He said:

“Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none” (Ex. 16:26).

There will be none.

No manna on Saturday. 

He’s telling them, “Don’t waste your time going out and trying to scrape up more than you need. Just rest. I’ll give you plenty on the other 6 days. Trust me.”

But some of them didn’t. I can relate to these funny folks who just had to go out into the field to see for themselves. Maybe there was some left behind they could scrape up and save for later? Maybe there was extra they could sell to the neighbors? They carry their baskets out to the fields on the Sabbath, but there was none.

“On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none” (v. 27).

God makes it clear: Don’t bother. There’s no manna on Saturday. 

God will not provide the strength to do something He hasn’t called us to do. He won’t energize efforts of the flesh. He won’t give me a single measly word if He knows I need to rest. Why? Because He loves me.

Because Sabbath was made for me. 

Because the whole point isn’t which day we do it or whether it’s sundown to sundown or whether it’s ok to drive to the store or bake bread or blah blah blah. The whole point is, when the Father says Rest we’re wise to obey and not waste our time out in the field looking for manna that’s not there.

Manna is simply the stuff we regularly need — it can be different for each of us. For me, most often it’s words. Words to speak, teach, write. I don’t worry much about money, but I desperately need words on a regular basis. That’s my manna.

What is your manna? What are you scraping for in your own strength instead of resting in the Father’s good plan and trusting at the right time He’ll rain it down? Has He been whispering Rest to your soul too? He loves you so much … let’s listen to Him. 

{Thank you for reading.}