A remarkably odd famine has long, clawed at the belly of America. Tired, starving and angry with protest are some of the symptoms of our malnutrition times. Oddly enough, people have been eating from a buffet of scraps. They are promised that the pitiful scraps of food are better than regular meals. And like Esau, they are often tempted and convinced to give over integral parts of themselves for food that won’t last. The belly of America is bloated with starvation, yet maybe not for long. Many of us are shoveling the scraps into the trash, choosing instead The Bread of Life.

Two years ago a revival took place at the Asbury University campus in Wilmore, Kentucky. I covered it for our district in Central California when the story first broke. Originally, I saw it as grassroots kids thirsty for the Kingdom of God, and likened the revival to a long, slow drink of Living Water. Now, I believe that the Asbury Revival is part of a quiet shift way from the cultural scraps of starvation to the hearty Bread of Life that probably began in 2021. Barna Group (a Christian research organization) reports that “66 percent of all U.S. adults say that they have made a personal commitment to Jesus,” and this “equates to nearly 30 million more U.S. adults who claim to be following Jesus today than in 2021”. Thirsts were quenched at the Asbury Revival and the hungry are being satisfied by The Bread of Life.

There is an ancient, Biblical story about God’s people, the Israelites, and their liberation from slavery in Egypt to the eventual divinely promised land in Canaan. It’s a wild story about God’s faithfulness and power and provision midst a newly saved nation that isn’t exactly sure how to handle their new found freedom. For generations, the Israelites had grown reliant on the ruling ways of the tyrannical Pharaoh and ate from the abundance of the Nile river. Once God secured their freedom, they lived away from the comforts of civilization and in the harsher conditions of untamed animals, uncultivated plants and uncertain locations. The order they had been previously accustomed to had also served as their prison. Now, free to truly live and follow God, the Israelites journey in the chaotic realm of potential. The promised land, which is to come, has not, and so they are in the wilderness.

Before my family and I had immigrated from Canada to America, there had been a prolonged wait on some of the government’s paperwork. In our church, applicants for the Lead Pastor role must candidate for the position and receive a majority vote from the congregation. By God’s leading and mercy this had successfully been accomplished; however the wait was much longer than expected. Such waits typically put pressure on staff and leadership of the host church, as well as on the incoming Pastors and their family. I recall on one of our evening walks, complaining to my wife and feeling not just anxious but almost despairing. It was as if I had lost sight of God and His promises. She helped me correct my attitude, rightly pointing out that God is our provider and that He will work everything out in His ways and His timing. In that wilderness of potential not yet realized, God did provide for all of our needs as well as the church. He was and is our daily Bread of Life.

Israel's wilderness dilemma is upon them as they walk away from the life they once knew in Egypt to a greater one promised by God in Canaan. It’s an uncomfortable experience, to say the least, and like most people today, the Israelites complain bitterly about how things were once better even if they really weren’t. People are often upset because of suffering. So too the Israelites who lay it on heavy with Moses and Aaron:

“If only the LORD had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death” (Exodus 16:3).

God saved Israel in a powerful and miraculous fashion from Pharaoh’s iron grip, and now the question is can He save them from the pits of their stomach? The wilderness is no place for the faint of heart, for its potential can be quickly overshadowed when mundane needs and wants are regularly deprived. In short, the Israelites had been accustomed to a particular way of life and were in the throes of of gaining a new and greater way of life.

Moses and Aaron are fully aware that God will need to provide suitable sustenance if they are to keep the community together and weather the years of chaotic potential. God does so by giving “meat to eat in the evening and bread to satisfy you in the morning” (Exodus 16:8a). Traditionally, we refer to this bread as mana, a strange type of bread that is found on the ground. The Bible describes it this way: “. . . the next morning the area around the camp was wet with dew. When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground” (Exodus 16:13b-14). It was a type of bread divinely given daily to foster life in Israel. This story serves as the backdrop to Jesus’ grand claim in John 6:35 when He states, “I am the bread of life.” Essentially, Jesus is saying that He alone can provide exactly what you need everyday. Without Him, the remarkably odd famine that claws at the belly of America will claw at yours because it turns out that the scraps we’re accustomed to cannot satisfy our deepest longings. To put it another way, the famine is despair. Jesus, Bread of Life, satisfies which fills the emptiness of despair.

Eat daily from The Bread of Life that is freely given to you; that is, read your Bible, pray, worship, serve, and celebrate the goodness of God (just to name a few examples). His death for your sins and resurrection revives you, so commune in faith and love with Jesus. All you need is an appetite, a willingness to be with Him. He’ll provide the rest.

“Taste and see that the LORD is good.

Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!” (Psalm 34:8)

-Pastor Aaron