In Want + Plenty by Meredith McDanielনমুনা

Day One

Longing for More

Scripture: Exodus 3:8; Romans 8:18, 22–25

A common story ties us all together: We want more, and we are desperately searching to find it. The pain can be relentless when we become blind to the goodness right before us. Our aching trumps our ability to see and take hold of God’s present provision, and it is as if a blindfold is placed on our eyes and hope evaporates. Oh, how we yearn. 

We are not alone in this yearning for life to look and feel different. Even Paul, an apostle of Jesus, felt this tug to make sense of our world: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

The story of Moses leading the Israelites in their Exodus journey gives us a unique perspective on our desert wonderings. We realize that thousands of years ago the Israelites were asking the same questions that we ask today: When will I be relieved of my aching? How long will I groan? Can I really trust God? 

God promised, “So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8). And just as God met the Israelites’ every need, he does so for us today. 

The promises and stories that unfold through the Old and New Testaments are just that—a testament to God’s provision in the midst of the hardest circumstances time and time again. I wonder what God is up to in your life. What light is trying to crack through in the darkest parts of your story and heart?

We long to live once again in the bliss of garden-like innocence with all its abundance, yet we each await heaven in this in-between space called Earth, craving what is still to come. Through the journey of the Israelites, we are reminded that God sees us, he provides for us, and he longs with us for the day we will long no more.

How would you describe the spiritual journey you have been on lately? Has this been a time of desert? Abundant garden? Wandering? Arriving at a stop along the way?