The people are to go out each day and gather
enough for that day.
Exodus 16:4 (NIV)
Enough for that day: Such was the rule for God’s giving and man’s working in the gathering of the manna. It is still the law in all the dealings of God’s grace with His children. A clear insight into the beauty and application of this arrangement is a wonderful help in understanding how one, who feels himself utterly weak, can have the confidence and the perseverance to hold on brightly through all his earthly years. A patient who had been in a serious accident once asked a doctor: ‘‘Doctor, how long will I have to lie here?’’ The answer, ‘‘Only a day at a time,’’ taught the patient a precious lesson. It was the same lesson God recorded for His people of all ages long before: enough for that day.
It was, without doubt, with a view to this and to meet man’s weakness that God graciously appointed the change of day and night. If time had been given to man in the form of one long, unbroken day, it would have exhausted and overwhelmed him; the change of day and night continually replenishes his strength. Children are given only one lesson for the day and in that way master the entire book in time. It would be useless to give the whole book to them at once; so it is with grown men too. Because divisions of time are broken down and divided into small fragments, we can bear them; only the care and the work of each day have to be undertaken—enough for that day only. The rest of the night enables us to make a fresh start with each new morning; the mistakes of the past can be avoided, its lessons improved. And we have only each day to be faithful for the one short day, and long years and a long life take care of themselves without the sense of their length or their weight ever being a burden.
Most sweet is the encouragement to be derived from this truth in the life of grace. Many a soul is upset with the thought as to how it will be able to gather and to keep the manna needed for all its years of travel through such a barren wilderness. It has not learned what unspeakable comfort there is in the word enough for that day. That word completely takes away all care for tomorrow. Only today is yours; tomorrow is the Father’s. The question ‘‘What security do you have that during all the years in which you have to battle the coldness, temptations, or trials of the world, you will always abide in Jesus?’’ is one you need not, may not ask. Manna, as your food and strength, is given only by the day; to faithfully fill the present is your only security for the future. Accept, enjoy, and fulfill with your whole heart the part you have to perform this day. His presence and grace enjoyed today will remove all doubt as to whether you can entrust tomorrow to Him too.
What great value this truth teaches us to attach to each single day! We are so easily led to look at life as a great big whole, and to neglect the little today, to forget that the single days do indeed make up the whole, and that the value of each single day depends on its influence on the whole. One day lost is a link broken in the chain, which it often takes more than another day to mend. One day lost influences the next and makes its keeping more difficult. In fact, one day lost may be the loss of what months or years of careful labor had secured. The experience of many a believer would confirm this.
Believer, would you abide in Jesus? Let it be day by day. You have already heard the message of ‘‘Moment by Moment’’; the lesson of ‘‘Day by Day’’ has even more to teach. Of the moments there are many where there is no direct exercise of the mind on your part; the abiding is in the deeper recesses of the heart, kept by the Father, to whom you entrusted yourself. But this is precisely the work that with each new day has to be renewed for the day—the distinct renewal of surrender and trust for the life of moment by moment. God has gathered up the moments and bound them up into a bundle (1 Samuel 25:29) for the very purpose that we might measure them. As we look forward in the morning, or look back in the evening, and weigh the moments, we learn how to value and how to use them rightly.
As the Father, with each new morning, meets you with the promise of sufficient manna for the day for yourself and those who have to partake with you, meet Him with the bright and loving renewal of your acceptance of the position He has given you in His beloved Son. Accustom yourself to look upon this as one of the reasons for the appointment of day and night. God thought of our weakness and sought to provide for it. Let each day derive its value from your calling to abide in Christ. As its light opens on your waking eyes, accept it on these terms: a day, just one day only, but still a day, given to abide and grow up in Jesus Christ. Whether it be a day of health or sickness, joy or sorrow, rest or work, of struggle or victory, let the main thought with which you receive it in the morning thanksgiving be this: ‘‘A day that the Father gave; in it I may, I must become more closely united to Jesus.’’ As the Father asks, ‘‘Can you trust Me for just this one day to keep you abiding in Jesus, and Jesus to keep you fruitful?’’ you are compelled to give the joyful response: ‘‘I will trust and not be afraid.’’
The day’s portion, enough for the day, was given to Israel in the morning very early. The portion was for use and nourishment during the whole day, but the giving and the getting of it was the morning’s work. This suggests how greatly the power to abide all the day in Jesus depends on the morning hour. ‘‘If the firstfruit is holy, the batch is also holy’’ (Romans 11:16). Hours of intense occupation come during the day in the rush of business or the pressure of deadlines, when only the Father’s keeping can ensure the connection with Jesus remains unbroken.
The morning manna fed the Israelites all day; it is only when the believer in the morning secures his quiet time in secret to effectively renew loving fellowship with his Savior that abiding in Christ can be kept up all day. But what cause for thanksgiving that it can be done! In the morning, with its freshness and quiet, the believer can look out upon the day. He can consider its duties and its temptations, and go over them beforehand, as it were, with his Savior, casting all upon Him who has promised to be everything to him. Christ is his manna, his nourishment, his strength, and his life; he can take enough for that day, Christ being his for all the needs the day may bring. In this way the believer can proceed with the assurance that his day will be one of blessing and growth.
And then, as the lesson of the value and the work of the single day is being taken to heart, the learner is unconsciously being led on to perceive the secret of ‘‘day by day continually’’ (Exodus 29:38). The blessed abiding grasped by faith for each day apart is an unceasing and ever-increasing growth. Each day of faithfulness brings a blessing for the next, making both the trust and the surrender easier and more blessed. And so the Christian life grows; as we give our whole heart to the work of each day. And so each day separately, all the day continually, and day by day successively, we abide in Jesus.
The days make up the life; what once appeared too high and too great to attain is given to the soul that was content to take and use ‘‘enough for the day, as prescribed for each day’’ (Ezra 3:4 NIV). Even here on earth the voice is heard: ‘‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your master’’ (Matthew 25:23). Our daily life becomes a wonderful interchange of God’s daily grace and our daily praise: ‘‘Who daily loads us with His benefits’’ (Psalm 68:19); ‘‘that I may daily perform my vows’’ (Psalm 61:8). God’s reason for daily giving is understood as we see how He gives only enough but also fully enough for each day.
We are encouraged to adopt His way, the way of daily asking and expecting. We begin to number our days not from the sun’s rising over the world, or by the work we do or the food we eat, but by the daily renewal of the miracle of the manna—the blessing of daily fellowship with Him who is the Life and the Light of the world. The heavenly life is as unbroken and continuous as the earthly; abiding in Christ each day brings to that day sufficient blessing. And so we learn to abide in Him every day, all through the day.
Lord, help us to see that this is enough—for today and every day to come.