Sunday Lessons #2: Mazdas, Manna and Mourning

About 5 years ago, I was picking up an almond milk latte on the way home from work when I received a call from my husband, Jacob. “Hey,” he said, “I’ve been in a car accident. I need you to meet me.” At first, I figured it was just a fender bender, but as I drove my thoughts got the best of me and I started to worry. He’s fine. It’s fine. I told myself. If he wasn’t ok, he wouldn’t have been able to call you. He didn’t say anything about being hurt. I drove the 15 minutes (which felt like 15 hours) to meet him in a McDonald’s parking lot. He had just finished getting me a new tire when a teenager driving an SUV slammed into my poor Mazda 3. Tears rushed to my eyes and broke through like water bursting through a levy. Jacob was completely fine, buy my car was crushed, airbag deployed and everything. I sobbed thinking about how bad this could have been and praised God for His mercy on the situation. My car was towed and we became a 1 car family until we could get a rental from insurance. Luckily, Jacob worked from home, so I drove his car for a week.

One Thursday afternoon, he texted to tell me that we finally had a rental. I was ecstatic! I love driving a new car and hoped that it would be something nice. My heart sunk when I drove up to find….a Toyota Yaris. And the most base model Yaris I’ve ever seen. No power windows. No cruise control (I didn’t even know that they made cars without cruise control). No CD player. What was this?! I’d asked for a car, but not THIS car. Being a 1 car family had to be better than this!!!

That same year, I had been doing a Bible Study that brought me to the book of Numbers. God had created a love for the Old Testament in me during that season of my life. I felt like I could so greatly relate to the Israelites who so deeply wanted to please God but were also so completely sinful and human that they couldn’t on their own. In the middle of Numbers, God leads the Israelites out of Egypt and grants them freedom from their oppressors. They are in the wilderness, however they are free and God is caring so carefully for them. But, instead of seeing their situaiton through God’s lens, they choose to complain.

“And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. Then the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down. So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the Lord burned among them.

Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, "Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at."

Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like that of bdellium. The people went about and gathered it and ground it in handmills or beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and made cakes of it. And the taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil. When the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell with it.” Numbers 11:1-9

I was acting just like the Israelites!! God was so gracious to me...protecting Jacob and the people in the other car, allowing our insurance to cover 100% of the accident, giving us a rental car...but all I could think of is what I didn’t have. I had done NOTHING, yet God in his great grace provided for me. In his grace, again, He allowed me to see how I was acting. Although the Yaris isn’t my favorite car I’ve ever driven, I look back now and am thankful for how He watched over us and provided for us.

God is funny like that. So often, in our minds, we have an idea or plan of how things are going to go, how God is going to provide for us. Then, when His plans and provisions are different, we spend our time focusing on how He didn’t do what we thought He would instead of basking in the blessings He did provide.

God has been teaching me lately to be open to His plans. Not to seek to understand, necessarily, but to take what He is doing with an open heart and mind and seek the blessings in it. In no scenario would I have chosen the circumstances that I’ve walked through in the past few months, but I’ve also been immensely blessed by those around me. I’ve felt a new drive to share Him with those I come into contact with. I’ve seen God’s great confirmation in the new church that He’s led us to. I’ve reconnected with friends from high school and college who have walked in this journey before me.

In my griefshare group on Wednesday, the video talked about how God doesn’t always change our circumstances (that’s not what being a Christian is about), but He does allow us to see life from His perspective. In that place, with His holy perspective, we are able to live how He created us to life: trusting in His divine plan and purpose with a grateful heart.

My prayer for you (and for myself) today is that we would be able to look to The Lord and that, in His grace, He would allow us to see how He’s blessed us, regardless of our current circumstances. And that, in that blessing, He would open our eyes to opportunities to bless others in His name.