Exodus chapter 16

20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

27 Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none.

28 Then the LORD said to Moses, How long will you refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?

29 Bear in mind that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no-one is to go out.

30 So the people rested on the seventh day.

Less than a month after the miraculous rescue from Egypt, the people are complaining about Moses and Aaron, saying that they were better off in Egypt where they had all the meat and bread they wanted. As soon as difficult circumstances, problem, worries, arose, they started complaining. First it was because Pharaoh's army was chasing them, then it was the bitter water at Marah, and here it is the lack of food.

So god provides the manna and tells them it only to pick up what they need for the day. Yet some people don't listen, they don't trust God and they gather more than a day's worth of manna, only to find it went rotten and maggoty overnight. Then on the day before the Sabbath, they are told to collect 2 days' supply and rest on the Sabbath, yet some of them go out on the Sabbath to see if there is any manna there.

This chapter, to me, is all about listening to God, obeying and trusting in Him. It’s no good professing to be a Christian if you always do what you want, try and get everything done yourself, and never bother asking for help, or seeking God's guidance. I'm not saying it is wrong to be self sufficient, but where does God come into your life if you are doing everything yourself without asking Him, talking to Him, spending time with Him? I can easily do this all the time, try and get jobs done, cope with an ever increasing to do list all without talking to God, but where is the relationship with God in that? It's like being married but you and your spouse live two completely separate lives, very rarely speaking to one another or spending time together. What sort of marriage is that?

We, I, need to listen out for God, to look for God in the everyday things. I mean, all you have to do is open your eyes and ears in the morning and you have God right there - from the sound of the birds singing, to the sun rising, the wind, the rain, the flowers with the dew on them. He is all around us everywhere we go, and there is nowhere that God is not. I've started to spend time with God at all hours of the day. It’s not just a case of sitting at my computer first thing in the morning and having a quiet time, but I will talk to God in the car taking the children to school/work, when going to see clients, before/during meetings, when I'm sitting waiting, in the shower, ion bed, anywhere and everywhere. I want to be like Brother Lawrence, and practise the presence of God wherever I am.

And then I need to trust God, just as the Israelites needed to trust God. It’s a case of letting everything I know about God move from my head to my heart. It’s not just about reading the bible, finding out what God is like from His word, but of really truly believing within yourself that He exists, He is real, and He is all powerful, omnipresent, omniscient, and all those other "omni's" that He is. And learning to trust God through the good times and the bad.

The Israelites went from one problem to another and each time they came across something new, they started moaning, complaining. Yet their previous experiences had shown them that God kept His word, that He could be trusted and that He was with them. We each face new and different problems all the time. We need to remember all that God has done for us in the past, and to trust in Him no matter what we are facing. Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world, so despite whatever the enemy is throwing at us, and in my case, it is everything including the kitchen sink, we need to trust in God, to turn to Him, rely on His understanding, His strength, His power, not our own.