Pastor’s Corner: “Can God Spread a Table in the Wilderness?”
Psalm 78:18-20 – “They tested God in their heart by demanding the food they craved. They spoke against God, saying, ‘Can God spread a table in the wilderness? He struck the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed. Can he also give bread or provide meat for His people?'”
The amazing miracles God provided for His people in the wilderness are widely known even by unbelievers that not a part of the church. I think that the familiarity of these stories can diminish the wonder and impact of the reality of God’s love shown through His power and provisions. The Israelites were rescued from slavery from the Egyptians in dramatic fashion (miracles upon miracles that they had never seen before). God guided their escape with His own Presence in the form as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night (13:21–22) and parted the Red Sea before His chosen people only to make the waves crash down on the Egyptian soldiers who were pursuing them once the Hebrews were safely across (14:15–31).
Their joy and praise of God did not last long before the grumbling began. Even these spectacular examples of God’s power and provision were not enough to overcome the feeling of despair that hunger and thirst produced once in the wilderness. A month and a half after their exodus from Egypt, the Jews began to complain to Moses that they were starving in desert. “Can God Spread a Table in the Wilderness?” The Israelites had just been rescued from Egypt in dramatic fashion and yet still questioned God’s power and provision. Even in our own lives it’s all too easy to ask God, in effect, What have you done for me lately?
The wilderness can be a place of forgetfulness. Unfortunately, upon arrival, it became a place of faithlessness, where God’s precious children doubted His provision and questioned his love. But God who supremely faithful responded to the needs of his chosen people by making bitter water sweet and raining food from heaven. Even as the manna fell, the people stared at this provision and literally named it, “what is it?” They didn’t recognize God’s provision.
This lack of recognition of God’s provision didn’t stop at the Exodus. Jesus comes on the scene as God’s provision for an unfaithful people, and the gift is unrecognizable. And those who do recognize this provision are few and surprising. The list is short and unimpressive: loud and brash Peter, several women, some of whom are not meant for polite company, the disenfranchised and disabled, and a Roman Centurion, among others.
Today we have our own relationship with the wilderness. The wilderness is not only a thick, mossy forest with towering trees or a sandy desert with oppressively hot days followed by frigid, windy nights. It is also a metaphor for a barren, in-between place of trial. Thankfully, the wilderness is also an ideal setting for God’s presence and provision to be displayed! But will we even recognize that provision and His presence with us? We can miss it and even complain about God’s provisions not seeing His amazing miracles and love. We can miss Holy Spirit (His Presence with us) who will never leave us.
I believe our wilderness today is the instability not only in our government but the world’s governments, an uncertainty for the future, social chaos, potential shortages of food and all other kinds of provisions and the certain coming of persecution for our faith in Jesus (just to name a few). We feel at a loss and cannot comprehend where God is and why He isn’t doing anything (sound familiar?). We are tempted to doubt God’s ability to provide for us in this wilderness and ask the same question: Can God spread a table in this wilderness? Make no mistake, the times we are facing is a trial and testing of our faith.
Can He provide for my financial needs? Can He meet me in a place of loneliness and fear? Can He visit cities and this nation with revival? Psalm 78 offers an invitation to faith. HE CAN! But does He? Sometimes. Sometimes we have not, because we ask not. So let’s get busy asking and trusting! The feast He prepares is food we don’t recognize or we’d rather not eat, thank you very much (no grumbling please). And it’s in those times that we’re invited to trust in the provision of our good and loving Father. Miracles of God are coming to display His magnificent Glory! Are you ready?
God is spreading a table for those who love and worship Him in the Wilderness – AMEN!
In His Grace,
Pastor Hamilton