What Is It?

Night Snowfall at Maple Grove

Large snowflakes falling gently through the night air caught the flash from my camera and reflected it back in this photo. The effect reminds me of "manna from heaven," the food that God provided for the Israelites when they wandered in the wilderness, as recorded in the Bible.

"When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor.When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, 'What is it?' For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, 'It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat'"

(Numbers 11:9; Exodus 16:14-15).

God is faithful in providing for the needs of His people, as we see in this miracle of the manna from heaven and when Jesus fed the crowd of 5,000 with two small fish and five barley loaves. 

Jesus does care about our physical needs, and more importantly, He cares about our spiritual needs.  The next day the crowd went looking for Him, and when they found Him, Jesus told them:

"Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”  . . Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.””  (John 6:47-51, 58).

What is it?  The manna in the Old Testament was bread from God that kept His people alive when they were wandering in the desert wilderness.  It was a foreshadowing of the new covenant in His Son, Jesus Christ.  He is the true manna from heaven, the Bread of Life. Those who believe in Him have new life now in this current wilderness and eternally when He makes all things new.