What the Sabbath Says: The God Who Provides

What does the Sabbath say about God and how He provides for His children? This is the first post in our new series: The Lord of the Sabbath.

I love to make plans, set goals, and achieve. God wired me that way, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Over the years, though, I’ve seen that it becomes a bad thing if I try to do it all apart from Him. If I operate the way He designed me to, but under His leadership, everything is different. I learn to rely on Him and His provision rather than relying on myself, proving myself, or trying to control things as a reaction to fear.

There’s a story in the Bible that helps me remember these lessons. And even though it’s a sad story in many ways, I love the story of the Exodus and what it teaches me about how God provides.

When God first instituted the Sabbath day, He did so to the wandering nation of Israel. After years of slavery in Egypt, the Israelites were led to freedom by God, under the earthly leadership of Moses. 

Because they didn’t trust God to help them take the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 1:26-33), God disciplined them by allowing them to wander for 40 years in the desert, until that generation had passed and a new generation would arise to enter. (Deuteronomy 1:34-35)

During the 40 years of discipline and wandering, God also showered love and care upon His rebellious children.

He provided for them.

While wandering, the Israelites often grumbled. (They were slow to learn, like me.) One of the things they complained about was food. They’d left the “luxuries” of Egypt (oh, how we often make sour lemons into sweet ones when we look back!) to wander, hungry, in a dry and dusty wilderness.

And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:2-3)

God’s answer was that He would provide manna and quail from heaven for His beloved, though obstinate, people. 

“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” (Exodus 16:4)

“In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.'” (Exodus 16:13-15)

God Provides

What was God doing here? God wasn’t just caving to the desires of His people; He was teaching them a valuable lesson about Himself. He provides! And as His people, we (like they, then) should trust that He is faithful to do that.

“On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, ‘This is what the LORD has commanded: “Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.”‘ So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, ‘Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.'” (Exodus 16:22-26)

The Lord told His covenant children to gather enough on the sixth day to last for the seventh. On the seventh day they were told not to gather anything! Enough be would be provided for the whole nation of Israel on the sixth day.

Exodus 12:37 tells us that there were over 600,000 “men on foot” (young men of fighting age) in the Exodus from Egypt. There were an estimated 2.4 million Israelites altogether.

And God provided for them all! (That’s a lot of manna and quail!)

Sabbath and God’s Provision

Through the Sabbath, God shows us that He is a God who provides. In this New Testament age, where we are no longer commanded to keep the Sabbath (though we can, Colossians 2:16), we look to God to learn from His Sabbath-giving nature. Like I mentioned in the introduction to this series, “…while ‘the salvation we have in Christ has made the old law of the Sabbath no longer needed or binding’ the Sabbath continually points to Him.”

Though God gave the Israelites just enough each day and even gave them extra on the sixth day to last through the seventh, some of them relied on themselves, instead. 

Some gathered extra each day to carry over into the next. It bred worms and got stinky. 

“And Moses said to them, ‘Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.’ But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them.” (Exodus 16:19-20)

Then there were those who went out to gather on the seventh day when they weren’t supposed to. Guess what? They went and found nothing.

“On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the LORD said to Moses, ‘How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.’ So the people rested on the seventh day.” (Exodus 16:27-30)

Why

Why did they do this?

• Maybe it was fear: “What if there isn’t enough?”
• They may have been self-sufficient. “I’ve got this!”
• Perhaps they were proving themselves to someone else. “Hey,sweetie, it’s ok. You can count on me!”
• Or did they just became negative and stay there? “I can’t believe this! Life isn’t going the way I want. Obviously I can’t trust God!”

Maybe they had a mix of reasons or other reasons altogether. We’ll never know.

But what we can know is what our response should be to God’s provision:  trust.

He is the same God who gives a Sabbath-rest to His children’s hearts today. He is the same God who will provide what we need when we need it, even if we don’t understand— and when it doesn’t look like what we expect.

Ultimately, God provides Himself. And that, my friend, is our greatest need!

Are you seeking God’s provision? What is He teaching you through the story of the Sabbath? Share with us in the comments or in our Facebook group. 

Resting in His provision,
Ali