What is it?

After the Israelites left Egypt and were complaining of being hungry, God sent "thin flakes like frost on the ground".  When the people saw it they said, "What is it?"  From then on they called it manna, which means, "What is it?"
What it was, was God's provision for them.  What it was, was the answer to their prayers. (Give us something to eat.)  What it was, was a blessing wrapped up in the shape of a thin frosted flake.
Have you ever been blessed like that?
Sometimes we don't recognize God's provision or his blessing.  Sometimes his gifts are wrapped up in unusual packages.  Sometimes they don't look too tasty.  Sometimes God gives us situations or circumstances and we ask, "What is this?"
Take.
Eat.
They ate the "bread of angels" for for 40 years.  To the younger generation that was all they ever ate!  They probably assumed that God would always provide for them in the same way.  They probably took his miraculous provision for granted.  What did they think  when they got to the promised land and the manna stopped?
Where's God?
Why has he abandoned us?
Where's my frosted flakes?????
Has God ever taken away something that you had assumed would always be there?
God can work in any way he wants to.  Just because he has done something one way for 40 years doesn't mean that is how he has always worked or how he always will work.  Be careful about assuming that you have God figured out.  Don't put him in a box and say "This is my God and this is how he works."
HE IS GOD!
He is not a genie.
He is not your secretary.
He is not Santa Clause.
He is not your Grandpa.
He works in ways that are SO far beyond what we can think or imagine.

Hundreds of years after the wilderness experience, the descendants of those wanderers said to Jesus, "Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you.  What can you do?  After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness!  Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat."
(Hey Jesus!  Give us some stuff!  Feed us!  We want what you can do for us!)

Jesus answered, "Moses didn't give them bread from heaven.  My Father did.  And now he offers you the true bread from heaven...Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died.  Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven."
(I give you me.)

"WHAT?"
God's greatest provision came wrapped up in a baby who became a man.
Surprising?  Yes
Unbelievable? Yes
A God who can feed a million people frosted flakes for 40 years can do anything he wants to.
He chose to come.
He chose to give us himself.
Take.
Eat.