EXTRAVAGANT PROMISES?

Exodus 16: 1 – 5
1 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt.
3 The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."
Years ago a friend of mine did a bike ride from downtown Boston to midtown New York for AIDS research. I boasted to her that I could do that even though I hadn't ridden a bike since I was a kid. I got a bike and began to ride all the time thinking about that three day “ride of death” that was rapidly approaching. By the time I was about a week away from the ride, I had convinced myself that I couldn't do it and was not going to show up at the ride registration. The closer the day got, the more I was convinced that I couldn't do it and that I would have been better off if I hadn't even tried.
I had come down with a case of R.T.E.S. (return to Egypt syndrome)
That's where the Israelites were in Elim.
There was this whole large desert in front of them and they were convinced that they would die, even though that God had performed incredible miracles and made them a promise of their own land on the other side.
4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.
God was about to perform another miracle to feed his chosen people to inoculate them from R.T.E.S.
Bread from heaven? Now that would be cool, food for free. Imagine the money we could save today if God would rain bread from heaven on us.
How much you wanna bet that the Israelites will complain about bread from heaven?
The Bible reminds us that today is all we need to tackle. We don’t need to worry about tomorrow’s tasks. Imagine Moses thinking, “I’ve got to feed all these people for who knows how long. How can I get that much food?” God took care of that with manna, but only enough for one day at a time.
Oh, by the way, I did do the AIDS ride, even though I complained quite a bit all along the way about it because I was still convinced that I would have been better off at home, but, I made it all the way.
R.T.E.S sucks try to inoculate yourself against it with daily doses of God and his word.