Hey all!

Today’s story is from Exodus 16 and 17..

After Moses and the Israelites (God’s people) escaped from Egypt and the angry Pharaoh (king), they began to wander around the desert toward the land God promised them.

Even though God had JUST saved them and they had seen some pretty cool things, (remember the plagues and the water dividing so they could walk through??) they were already grumpy.

They said “WHY GOD WHY?! WHY WOULD YOU BRING US TO THE DESERT WITH NO FOOD?! WE WERE BETTER OFF BEING MISERABLE IN EGYPT!!!”

God heard the people and even though they should have been thankful, and were instead complying, God still had mercy on them and was kind. He gave them quail (bird meat) to eat each evening and He gave them manna (bread) each morning.

God told Moses to tell the people that bread would fall from heaven and each morning they could collect enough for just that day. If they were greedy and tried to take a bunch or to save it for later, it would just get yucky. God wanted His people to trust Him each and every day. And He was faithful and provided for them each and every day.

Even still, the people got grumpy. They were tired of just eating the quail and manna. At one stop, they were complaining about not having enough water. God again had mercy on His people and told Moses to go to a certain rock and to touch it with his staff (big stick). So Moses went before all the people and water came from the rock. (Nothing is too hard for God!)

(Above: we used two easter eggs and filled them with blue ribbon, but you could use tissue paper, crepe paper or even actual water if you wanted. Then they used their staffs (pipe cleaners) to tap on the rock, opened them up, and revealed the water.)

The people were still unhappy though. God was doing wonderful things for them and through them, but they just couldn’t trust Him and they couldn’t be happy. When God something hard or sad is happening in our lives, God is teaching us and helping us to trust Him more. It can be hard to always trust God, but He is always faithful and He loves us even if we are grumpy. Isn’t that wonderful news?

Next time we’ll see what happens at Mt Sinai. Thanks for joining us. Love to you all!