Exodus 16 tells us the story of how God provided manna for the children of Israel in the wilderness. The children of Israel were in a place in the wilderness where they couldn’t procure food for themselves, so every night, God miraculously rained down from heaven this stuff called “manna.” Each morning, when Israel woke up, the ground was covered with it.
“Manna,” in Hebrew, is man’hu and literally means, “What the heck is it?” Based on the description Exodus gives, it seems like a mix between a Twinkie and a protein bar. This manna was provided daily. But of course, people back then were just like they are today, so they wanted a stockpile of it, just in case one morning it didn’t show up, in case God forgot or overslept or something. With their lips, they said they trusted God. But with their lives, they became functional atheists.
But God says, “That’s not how I want you to think. I want you to trust that I’ll be there tomorrow to provide for your needs then, and you express that by gathering only enough for today and sharing any excess with those who don’t have enough today.” To drive home the point, God caused whatever excess they stockpiled to rot, breed worms, and stink.
So think about being in this situation: You go out and collect a bunch of manna for the day, and by lunch, it’s clear that you have more than enough for your family. You’ve made everything you can make with manna: manna-cotti, peanut butter and manana sandwiches, manana bread, all of it. But still, you have some left over. And that’s when you notice there’s another family who, for whatever reason, didn’t gather enough for the day. So what do you do? Well, your manna won’t be any good by tomorrow anyway, so you might as well go ahead and share the extra manna you have with them. This is precisely how it went down, as Moses records in Exodus 16:18: “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack” (ESV). The Apostle Paul points to that verse to make exactly this point: People with extra manna were sharing it with those who didn’t have enough—and we should do the same with our “manna.”
God was training them, you see, to un-become the functional atheists that they (and, let’s be honest, we) so naturally were. When you trust that the God who provided for you today will be there to provide for you tomorrow, you’ll be much more open-handed with your stuff. But when you don’t—when you hoard and refuse to share because you’re afraid that tomorrow there won’t be a God to provide for you—functionally, you’re thinking like an atheist again.
We don’t live in a manna world, so let me offer a more modern example. Let’s say you learned that your child’s classmate was so poor, they never brought lunch to school. So one morning as you are packing your kid’s lunch, you put two sandwiches into his bag, intending for him to share one with his poor classmate. But the morning got away from you, and you forget to tell your little Johnny why you did that. At lunch hour, he opens his lunch box to discover he has two sandwiches. Then he looks next to him and sees his hungry friend with no sandwich.
If your son instinctively shares his sandwich, how would you feel? Disappointed? “Well, there it goes. My kid doesn’t know how to save for a rainy day! Better make him listen to some Dave Ramsey”? No, you’d feel proud that he instinctively knew that he could use any excess you gave him to share. Why? Because he’s confident that you will faithfully supply his needs tomorrow.
In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul is saying that God is no different. When he gives us more, it’s so we can meet the needs of those around us today, because we are confident that an ever-faithful God will be present tomorrow to supply our needs again then. Now, let me be clear: The Bible is not against wise savings. The book of Proverbs commends it in at least six places, and people like Joseph illustrate the wisdom of it. But the Bible also says, in a clarity that is unmistakable, that you should respond to the needs and kingdom opportunities in front of you. God didn’t give you more so you could have more; he gave you more so you could share more.
For many of you, saving has become a replacement for trust in God, and that’s evidenced in how you ignore the needs and opportunities God puts in front of you today. You won’t give generously today because you’re afraid you might be in a situation tomorrow where God won’t provide. You’re only comfortable when you have so much money in the bank that you can say, “I don’t even need God for the future; I have all that I need right here.” You’re piling up heaps and heaps of manna, hoping it’ll last forever.
I have bad news and I have good news. The bad news is, God won’t let that manna last. He’ll rot it just like he did that bread in the wilderness. But the good news is, God won’t let that manna last. Yes, that’s good news! Why? Because he loves you too much to let you rely on wealth, which is ultimately unstable. He loves you too much to let your soul rot, like that manna. So he reminds you, as he reminded the people of Israel, that an untrusting, hoarding spirit is a rejection of God.
God has so much more for you than you could possibly imagine. But it doesn’t come through a posture of clenched fists. It comes through open hands. He has already been tremendously generous toward you. And if you truly believed that generosity was waiting for you tomorrow, what would you give today?
