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“Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you” (Exodus 16:4a).

“And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31).

Every evening at dusk, I fill my bird feeders with bird seed. In the morning—to the birds’ amazement, I’m sure—there is more seed for them to eat. If they could talk, I wonder if they might say, “Where did this come from? It was almost gone when we went to bed. Does the seed grow overnight? This is a mystery we don’t understand. But we sure are happy when we see the food again!” I give my birds food because I care about them.

When Moses was leading the Israelites through the wilderness to the Promised Land, the people were hungry and needed food for their health and strength. Moses couldn’t go to the grocery store to buy food. Instead, He depended on God to supply what the people needed. But the Israelites were unhappy with Moses. They accused him of taking them into the wilderness to kill them (Exodus 16:4b).

God heard the complaint from His people and told Moses that He would “rain bread” from Heaven. God also gave strict instructions, telling the Israelites how much food they could have each day, but some did not obey Him. They did not believe there would be enough food for them the next day, so they gathered more than God had instructed, and they kept some overnight. During the night worms infested it, and the next day it stank and had to be thrown away. God provided manna during the morning, but as soon as the sun came out, the manna melted. In the evening God provided meat. He wanted the Israelites to know “that I am Lord your God” (Exodus 16:12b). The Israelites did not have to worry about food again. They knew exactly where it had come from.

God wants us to trust Him and believe that He will provide all that we need. Today, thank God for all the provisions that He gives you daily. Can you name some of His blessings?

My response:

» Do I tell God my needs and trust Him to provide them?

» Do I thank God for the blessings He has already given me?

» When God meets one of my needs, do I remember to thank Him?

“They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness. The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalm 145:7–9).

Psalm 145 was a well-known song among the Israelites in Old Testament times. What do you think the people in the neighboring nations thought when they heard the words to this psalm? The neighbors were godless people: they didn’t believe in the God of the Bible. Some of them were idolaters who worshiped many gods. Some of them would not bow the knee to any kind of god at all.

Do you think these godless people were happy? Were their idols hearing or answering their prayers? Were these people able to get themselves through hard times on their own, without God? In our time, we can only imagine what people might have been thinking back then. But you can look around at people today. You can watch how godless people respond in a crisis and see how hopeless they are. You can read about them and see what they do and say. You can watch how it is for them to live life apart from belief in the God of the Bible. And you can see for yourself whether they really are happy or at peace.

Many people do not know God and do not really want to know Him. But if they could believe what Psalm 145 teaches about God’s character, maybe they would be able to trust Him and obey Him. If Israel’s neighbors had understood that their homemade idols could never be “good to all” like the Lord is, maybe they would have listened more carefully to the Israelite psalms.

Do your neighbors believe in the God of the Bible? Do they have any clue how great He is in His goodness and how that goodness extends to everybody? If they did, do you think we could watch their lives and see them happy and peaceful? Could we think of ways to show them the truth of God’s goodness, even in the way we live in front of them? The Israelites’ neighbors had heard of them and knew the stories about the Israelites’ God. Maybe we should be singing the goodness of our God a little louder here in the twenty-first century.

The Lord is good to all.

My response:

» Do I really believe that the Lord is good?

» If so, how does that change the way that I live?

» Can people around me tell what I believe about the Lord’s goodness?

“And a certain woman named Lydia . . . heard us: whose heart the Lord opened” (Acts 16:14).

When Paul received a call from God to go to Macedonia and preach the gospel, he and his missionary companions immediately set sail. One of the first major cities they came to was Philippi. They found a group of women meeting beside a river, so they sat down with them to tell them the good news about the true God.

One of these women was Lydia. She lived in the city of Thyatira and made her living by selling purple cloth. The Bible tells us that Lydia “worshiped God.” She was interested in the Jewish God and tried to worship Him in her own way, but she had not yet become a believer in Christ. Acts 16:14 says that Lydia heard Paul’s preaching because the Lord had opened her heart. Lydia’s heart was not hard and cold, nor was it doubtful and questioning. She had a heart that was open and ready to receive God’s Word because of a work that He had done inside of her. After hearing Paul’s preaching, she and her entire household were willing to show the world publicly, through baptism, that they were believers in Christ.

Is there someone you would like to share the gospel with? Pray for that person, asking God to open his heart. Maybe you have a neighbor that you have tried several times to witness to, but she has never been willing to listen. Ask God to open her heart. Perhaps you have a family member that is not saved, but you feel a little fearful to talk to him about the Lord. God can open his heart too!

God wants us to share the gospel with the unsaved people around us, but salvation is His work, not ours. The story of Lydia reminds us that God is the one who makes people ready and willing to receive the good news of Jesus Christ. Each time you hand someone a gospel tract, write a letter to someone explaining how to be saved, or talk to an unsaved person about Jesus, remember to ask for help from the God, Who opens hearts.

In salvation, God does a special work of opening hearts and making people ready to accept Jesus Christ.

My response:

» Am I making an effort to tell unsaved people the good news of Jesus Christ?

» When I do that, am I depending on the power of God to open their hearts?

“For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth” (Proverbs 3:12).

None of us likes to be disciplined by our parents. It’s not fun at all. But if you have loving parents, you know they don’t enjoy disciplining you either. A little girl named Addy was once caught stealing money out of her mom’s purse. When her dad took her aside to discipline her, Addy saw that her dad was crying, even while he gave her a punishment. At first Addy was just sad that she had been caught. But when she saw her dad crying, she was even sadder that she had disappointed him so much by stealing.

Our Heavenly Father is disappointed when we, His children, sin. He punishes us because He knows that sometimes a punishment is necessary for us to learn to obey Him. This is called discipline. God loves us and punishes us for our good, not because He enjoys disciplining us. Throughout the Old Testament, God often had to discipline the children of Israel when they went astray and disobeyed Him. But His heart’s desire wasn’t to punish them—it was for them to repent of their sins and turn back to Him!

God has to discipline us when we disobey Him, but He does it because he loves us.

My response:

» Do I understand that God disciplines His children because He loves them?

» Do I remember that I am disappointing my Heavenly Father when I sin against Him?

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).

Have you ever been lost? I have. When I was a young boy, about eight- or nine-years-old, my brother and I were walking home from school. Instead of walking down the streets we knew, we followed a creek for a while, thinking it would take us toward home. But it didn’t. It went another direction. When we realized we were lost, I got a little scared. We finally asked a man where the street we lived on was, and he told us. As we followed his guidance, we got back to familiar territory and home!

What my brother and I did is what Proverbs 3:5 tells us not to do. We leaned on our own understanding. We thought we knew what we were doing, but we didn’t. This is how most people are for most of their lives. They think they know what they are doing, and instead of getting their guidance from the Lord, they go their own direction. And they get lost—every time! Why is that? It is because no one has the ability in himself to go the right direction, to do the right thing. The prophet Jeremiah even admitted this fact to God when he said, “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jeremiah 10:23).

If we don’t have the ability in ourselves to go the right way or do the right thing, how can we get it? We must believe, obey, and honor the Lord, and He will make sure we go the right direction and do the right thing. That is what Proverbs 3:6 tells us. The Lord has already given us the guidance we need. We just have to find out what it is and do it.

God’s guidance will always take us in the right direction. It will always take us home—to Him.

My response:

» Do I ask God for guidance or lean on my own understanding—on what seems right to me?

» When I sin, do I confess it to God and turn back to Him, or do I try to fix it myself (leaning on my own understanding)?

» Do I learn God’s Word, obey it, and use it to guide me?