God Provides in Unexpected Ways
Along the lines of our previous blog, God Provides Lack, we must also know that God often provides in unexpected ways as well.
You may remember the account of the Israelites in wilderness after fleeing from captivity in Egypt. Exodus 16 recounts their plight over food and how God supernaturally provided for them on an ongoing basis.
During this time the Israelites were grumbling against God, and God provided in amazing ways.
Later on in their journey, they began grumbling aginst God because even though God was providing, it wasn't the way they expected or hoped or wanted God to provide anymore.
"The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin. The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into loaves. And it tasted like something made with olive oil. When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down ... The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.” ... Now a wind went out from the LORD and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food." (Numbers 11).
If the lesson from the first grumblings of the Israelites was that God was more than able to provide, the lesson of the these grumblings was that God often provides in ways other than we suspect or realize.
How is God providing for you? Maybe you want Him to provide in a certain way and end up missing that He is already providing for you in amazing ways!
