The One Year Bible - Day 33

We start seeing this metaphor here of the Exodus of the Israelites and how it represents a Christian journey, not so much from Earth to Heaven but from our conversion until we enter the fullness of Christ in our promised land. Notice that even in the Promised Land, there were still trials so this cannot represent the heaven that we understand from scripture with "no more crying, pain" etc.
We see a number of features of this journey which have lessons to teach us. At this stage in Exodus 16, we read of the fact that their first journey leg led them to the law represented by Sinai. This is interesting because our modern teaching often omits the law as somehow not required (because of Jesus) when in actual fact, the law is still the datum of character for those in Christ, the foundation for our lives of 'grace'.
We read of how quickly the Israelites forgot of God's massive display of power against the Israelites when all of sudden, "we are going to die". As if God would save them and then forget them. We also do the same and sometimes need to look back to help us trust God when He feels distant.
We see God giving them food (read spiritual food for us) which is just enough for the day. We can't plan out our whole life, we can trust and live for today. God wants a relationship and therefore anything that is planned out for longer than a day weakens the relationship. There were people who tried to live off this spiritual food for longer than they were supposed to and it was spoiled. I think this happens in our ministries when we start under God and continue under our own steam.
We see a subtle metaphor about the importance of testimony when Aaron is told to keep a container of manna for future generations. We might not be able to live off a calling forever but we can certainly record God's blessing to inspire ourselves and others that He is alive and kicking!
We then see one of those awful situations where the people ask, "is the Lord here or not" when they want water. When things are dry in our Christian life, do we complain to God and ask Him if He is "here" or not, or do we trust that God will do His thing in His time and that is all we need to know. This is GOOD news since it means dryness is not always a measure of spirituality but a measure of reality. It also allows our character to be proved so that we do not complain when we don't see "water".