Miracles are great. Until you have to depend on them for a long time. Manna was pretty neat the first few times it appeared, but after forty years it lost its pizzazz. The daily wondering of “What if the miracle doesn’t come through today?” will wear on you after a while.
We like consistency and predictability—which the manna offered. But we also like control and agency—which the manna withheld. Imagine not being able to make a sandwich, or a burrito, or even pour a bowl of cereal. Simple self-determined meal prep was literally off the table.
Forty is a funny number in the Bible. Sometimes it very well could be literal; sometimes not so much. Regardless, it almost always marks a season of testing and transition.
Rain falls for forty days in the flood. Moses is on Mount Sinai for forty days. Elijah takes forty days to travel to Mount Sinai. Jesus fasts for forty days in the wilderness. Just to name a few. In each case, forty marks a bounded period of trial, during which time someone is miraculously sustained by God, and which ends in a decisive change of status: life is reestablished, the covenant is given, a prophet is renewed, a ministry is launched.
It’s worth noting that human gestation also takes approximately forty weeks. A difficult and miraculous period of time before something—someone—new is born.
One way to look at the manna is that it was miraculous provision until the people had matured to the point that they could provide for themselves. Until the season of testing worked its fullness in them, making them ready for their transition. Until they were ready to be reborn as a people.
Are you wandering in the wilderness? Are you experiencing little miracles? Are you honestly getting tired of depending on those miracles? Take heart. Your transition—your rebirth—is coming.
See Exodus 16:31-35.