The journeying children of Israel (Jacob’s descendants) yearned for the leeks and onions and garlic they’d had in Egypt. “Who will give us meat to eat? Our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes.” (Numbers 11:5)
Spicy memories of our old life can draw us back to what we once were, if we allow our minds to conjure up the past. “This” (manna) did not have to be their daily diet for 40 years. The journey from Egypt into the Promised Land could have been one of eleven days. It was because of their unbelief that it took forty years! (Deuteronomy 1:2-3) They could have enjoyed the fruit of Canaan, but they lived on a daily ration of manna, which had the taste of coriander seed, which even today is not to everyone’s taste.
Get your mind off those spicy memories of your past life and on to the wholesome promises of God in Jesus Christ. You can live on these delicious daily delights, not just survive on weekly rations from the pulpit. ‘Meat and three veg.’ is not what life in Christ is about. But if that’s what you’re eating these days, ask yourself why.
After crossing the Jordan River the manna ceased and the children of Israel lived on what was growing already in Canaan. They planted the seed of what they would live on thereafter in the Land of Promise. “Entering in” was not enough: the Promised Land had to be possessed in its entirety! So too do God’s promises to each and every believer in the Lord Jesus, who has left behind the old life and then God’s daily sustainment of John 3:16. “There remains very much land yet to be possessed.” (Joshua 13:1)
We have entered the promises of God in Christ, but are we yet to enter and fully possess our own particular promise? Doing so will involve dispossessing its squatters — its former inhabitants. Think on these things…