Shut Up and Eat Your Manna...

I am almost certain that at this time a week ago, I was mowing a lawn and contemplating firing up the ol' swamp cooler. I didn't because for obvious reasons (if you've read my post "The Rooftop"), I have a love/hate relationship with swamp cooler maintenance.

Probably a good decision. It looks like December out there. Snowing like a son of a gun, and showing no sign of stopping. I'm actually wondering if maybe I didn't clean out the fireplace a bit too early...

Went to church yesterday and had a hard time feeling it. I almost always find something new to satisfy my curious mind, but for some reason I just felt tuned out. You have those kind of days now and again. The Boss and I sent the kids into do a quick pickup on the house while we sat in the car for a few minutes and talked about it. Squizzle sat on her lap playing with buttons and occasionally honking the horn (which he thinks is simultaneously the funniest and most terrifying thing ever).

Oh, yeah, I suppose I should mention that we have a new (to us) car. The Boss's Dad found a solid used Toyota Sienna for us to use. The Dodge is looking more and more like it has seen it's last tire change. If there is one thing in the universe that Pop hates more than crooked politicians, it's an unreliable automobile. Knowing that we were certainly in no position to do anything about it; he and mom stepped in to help.

I'm beyond grateful, yet conflicted. You'd think I'd have gotten used to the fact that a major portion of this little exercise has been about the Lord humbling one of his more arrogant children. You'd think that I'd have figured out by now that I'm simply not going to be allowed to rely on my own force of will to face the obstacles in my path. You'd think I'd just learn to accept the fact that the Lord's help will come in the way that He wants, not how I want.

But I haven't.

It's part of the reason I was so tuned out at church. We were so dam...darned close to being able to take care of that kind of thing ourselves and now we are right back into the cavernous maw of uncertainty. It's the kind of situation that makes a guy feel like his Man Card is about to be irrevocably suspended.

You are trying as best you can to provide for your family, and circumstances beyond your control seem to work against you. It is awfully frustrating. The Boss and I were wondering "what next?" when I mentioned that now that coaching wrestling isn't going to happen, and teaching English isn't going to happen, and Seminary isn't going to happen; Well, heck. My English degree does me about as much good as if I'd dropped out of high school instead.

"We'd have been better off if we hadn't left the warehouse job to begin with", I told her.

That's when it hit me. I've been teaching Old Testament in Sunday School, and all I could hear when I said that was "were it not better for us to return into Egypt?" (Numbers 14:3).

I was sounding suspiciously like Edward G. Robinson in "The Ten Commandments.

Then I heard the still small voice say to me "Shut up and eat your manna." (I know; the Holy Ghost doesn't tell most people to shut up, but most people don't talk as much as me).

I don't get to choose the method of deliverance from my wilderness. No one does. He sent manna because it was what the children of Isreal needed. They wanted meat (That didn't turn out so good. Read Numbers 11:20 for the funniest scripture ever). They needed manna. Yesterday after church, I read why.

Numbers 8:2-7
2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.
3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.
5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.
6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.
7 For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;


This is why humility is the "Manliest" of virtues. You have to be really tough to accept the Lord's help when what you really want is to prove to him you can do it yourself. That line about "Thou knewest not" really struck me. The Lord told the people he was going to lead them to the Promised Land in a way they were not familiar with so that they were forced to rely on him. They got to the Promised Land, just not in a way they ever expected.

"Shut up and eat your manna"

About as good a lesson as I'm likely to ever learn.

So back to my original story. After the Boss and I talked in the car for a minute, we came in and decided to do something nice for someone. We got to cooking dinner and the Boss made a peach cobbler with enough to take a pan to the guy in our ward who had helped me with the Seminary internship. We went out to the car, the Boss turned the key and...

Nothing. It was deader than the Cubbies bullpen. Squizzle had turned on the lights when he was playing with things and as the controls are all still pretty unfamiliar, we didn't catch it until 5 hours later when the battery was gone.

If the Lord is leading us to the Promised Land, I am getting the nagging suspicion that we are going to have to walk. Cars just ain't cutting it for us.

The Boss went in to call Pop and have him come give us a jump while I sat down and contemplated whether or not manna tasted like peach cobbler; and if it pairs well with vanilla ice cream.

I wonder what that "Valley" is gonna look like?