Episode 4: Exodus 16

Let’s get started with a prayer to get us focused and our minds on the Lord. Father, we come to you right now and we ask that you be head of every part of our life. Lord, we are constantly striving to do better, to be better in so many areas of our life. But, Lord, could you help us right now to surrender all of that to you and let you provide just enough in every part of our lives? Lord, this is so hard for me personally. I know it’s probably hard for my friends, so I just asked Lord that their hearts would be softened by the words they’re hearing today from your word. And I pray, Lord, that after they have time to think about this, wrestle with it and talk to you about it, father, that that their lives will ultimately be changed. Lord, we thank you for your power. We thank you for your provision. We thank you, Lord, that you love us so much.

Teach us to be more like you in Jesus name. We pray. Amen.

All right. So I’m a really visual person. I think that’s why when I get on my phone, Facebook and Instagram just capture me. I just love seeing what everybody is doing. I don’t even hardly read anything. I just I just look at all the pictures. And so I was thinking about doing a podcast on how to live just a well balanced life. And immediately, I think of those scales that we used to play with and I think in school or maybe science class where you you put things on each side and there was always for me personally, there was always a goal of like equaling out the two sides. You know, does this stapler weigh just as much as this paper weight or whatever we had trying to really just equal them out? I think about also the seesaw on the playground. I don’t know if they have seesaws on playgrounds anymore, but so, so satisfying to try to get equal amounts of weight on each side so that you and your friend were just balanced right there in the center. I wonder if many of us are trying to kind of ground or balance our lives by striving to maybe put equal time and resources and thought into every single part of our lives. For example, like if you tried to spend as much time with your family as you do your job or maybe like find yourself wanting to take a vacation just so that you can catch up on quality time with your family.

I wonder how many of us keep track of how much exercise we do compared to how much TV we eat, or maybe how much exercise compared to how much junk food we’re eating.

Maybe you evaluate how much time you spend with your spouse and wonder if it’s enough to balance the scales of your marriage. I think even some of us maybe think if we spend enough time at church on Sunday morning or volunteering or serving at church or any ministry, then we’ll just have the right amount of faith and religion and Jesus. And we’re always just weighing what I can give. And if that’s enough to equal out, we think what an accomplishment it would be if every part of our lives just carried the same amount of weight. Right. How satisfying it would be to feel like my family and my job, my hobbies, my church, my finances, they just all received what they needed. Equal time, resources, attention. I don’t know. I think if you really thought about it today, you would hope that every aspect of your life would get the same amount of time and resources and attention, and you’d say they’d be great. But I think it’s pretty impossible. Right? I mean, there’s only 24 hours in a day. Yet we try really hard to be everything to everyone and expect to feel satisfied and accomplished at the end of the day. We think this type of life like a well-balanced equal on each side and every part of my life is going to bring me peace. It would bring me joy. It might even bring me the strength to handle anything that might disrupt that balance that we’re trying to achieve. Well, I would want to encourage us instead of doing all of that. What if we could redefine what a well-balanced, grounded in Christ life would look like? What if we instead of trying to equal everything out? What if we put God on one side of the scale and watch him balance out what we put on the other, putting him in? Charge of every part of our life.

I think if we invite God to be the head of each part of our lives, he will encourage us.

His Holy Spirit will talk to us about what time needs to be spent, where and what resources need to put, where and what talents we should use for his kingdom. I think suddenly our time, our talent, our resources, our attention will actually be multiplied by his power and be used where it needs to be used at just the right time.

Doesn’t that sound amazing?

I was thinking this last week. I’m in a Bible study and they had us read a story from Exodus 16. And it’s a story I’ve heard a few times where the Israelites are complaining because they were hungry and they said, you know, if we just stayed in Egypt, we could have had all the food that we wanted.

And so God heard their complaints and he provided quail and manna from heaven for them each day, which is amazing in itself. But it’s not really the part of the story I want to focus on today. Today, the part I want to focus on is Exodus 16, starting on fifth verse fifteen, it says, and Moses told them the Israelites, it is the food the Lord has given you to eat. These are the Lord’s instructions. Each household should gather as much as it needs. Pick up two courts for each person in your tent. I love how specific to court for each person in your tent. For all of you, rule followers are people who want specific instructions. There it is to courts times. How many people in my family. That’s what I need to gather each morning for food. So verse 17 says the so the people of Israel did as they were told. Some gathered a lot. Some only a little. But when they measured it out, everyone had just enough. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough. Each family had just what it needed. Friends.

This is what I want to tell you today. If you would just ask the Lord to provide what you need in every area of your life, your marriage. Ask him what you need in your marriage, your finances. Ask him to provide just enough. Your your children. Are they. Are they struggling right now? Are you having a hard time? Ask God what you should do, what you should say, how to help them. Your job. Do you have an opportunity in your job that you need to take? That you need to turn away from? Do you need to to work harder? Probably not. You probably need to give all of those things to the Lord, because what I want to tell you is those Israelites, the ones that worked really hard and longer, had just the same amount as those who worked just for a little. Because when we trust God to provide for every part of our lives, he will balance it out. The Bible tells us that if we just walk with God, our yoke, that the burden that we have to bear is actually light. I want to be that group of Israelites that picked up manna for just a minute. And magically, when it went to be weighed and and served my family, it was just enough.

That’s where I want to be.

And Lord, I’m just asking for you right now. I’m just asking you to be head of every part of my life. Lord, I want to trust you with everything right now.

I’m not really sure what that looks like for you today. And sometimes I don’t even know what that looks like for me either. As I was thinking about this podcast and thinking about how to live a well-balanced life, I sat down with a piece of paper and a pencil and I just wrote out, you know, all the areas of my life that I wanted God to be the head of my marriage, my children, my career, my purpose, my family, my friends, my home health, finances. And I just went through each of those and just spoke to the Lord out loud about each one of those. Lord, would you be the head of my marriage? Show me what that looks like, Lord. Show me how to have a light burden when it comes to being a wife and being in this marriage relationship. Lord, would you be head of my children? Would you allow me to surrender them to you and ask you first what they need? And just so on and so forth through every part of my life, and I don’t know what that looks like for you, but I would encourage you to wrestle with this a little bit and read Exodus 16. It’s it’s a really cool story. And just ask the Lord. Ask the Lord if if he is the head of each part of your life and if there’s an area that you could turn over to him so that it didn’t feel like such a heavy burden anymore, so that it didn’t feel out of control, out of balance, out of whack. Whatever it is. Friends, I promise you that if you put him in charge of it, it’ll make all the difference in the world. And sometimes we have to do that every minute of the day. Right. Because I’ll do it first thing in the morning. Lord, help me with this, this and this. And then by noon, I’m struggling with it again. And so that’s OK. The Lord knows that. He just wants you to come to him and say, help me again, Lord. Help me again. Help me again. Help me again. He’ll do that for you. I promise.

So just pray. Just read Exodus 16. You know, another one where the Lord took the little bit that we have any blessed it and turned it into provision is in mark chapter six, I believe, with the feeding of the thousands, with just the fish and the loaves. I know you’ve read or heard that story probably over and over again, but in Mark chapter six, I love the disciples. Let Jesus know that we have a problem here. People need to eat. You need to send them home. And Jesus says you feed them and they say with what? It would take us two months to work to buy food for all of these people. And Jesus said, well, what do you have? So they went around. They found what they had. The Lord took it. He blessed it and he multiplied it. And it provided way more than it should for those people. It’s just beautiful. So so Exodus 16, Mark 6. I challenge you to read both of those and ask the Lord if he would be if he would take the little bit that you have. And he would multiply it into exactly what you need for each area of your life.

Praying for you today. Thank you so much for listening.