Manna

Several somethings happened last week that made me despair for a tiny moment. And then i thought: well, whatever the circumstances, God cares about my character and spiritual formation more than merely circumstance-based happiness, so i should find the balance between disappointment and despair, and between being sad and being dismal to those around me.

That seemed to go okay.

And then i thought: y'know, this kinda marvelous thing that didn't work out, i'd seen it as a last-chance effort. When it didn't work, i thought, well, there's no way it could happen again. This morning though, i remembered manna. God made manna *every day* for almost 40 years for the wandering Israelites. He makes sunsets and sunrises day after day, and holds the universe together year after year, second after second. If he wants something to happen again, he can do it.

And if he doesn't--career, car, life-long love--well, then the poem excerpt below is where i want to make my soul-battle stand:

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights."
Habakkuk 3:17-19.

I've written my own little paraphrase of that, but i won't post it here lest it come across as pitiful. ;-)