"Meat" or "Manna"

In today’s first reading, Numbers 11: 4-15,  the people are fed up with eating manna day in and day out:  “Would that we had meat for food,” they lament. Moses is fed up with the people, as well. He says to the Lord: “Why do you treat your servant so badly? Why…burden me with this people…tell[ing] me to carry them at my bosom, like a foster father carrying an infant, to the land you promised under oath to their fathers? Where can I get meat to give to all these people? ….If this is the way you deal with me, then please do me the favor of killing me at once, so I no longer need to deal with this distress.”

This morning I was as discombobulated at the Israelites in the desert. I wanted something to be a certain way--I wanted "meat," not "manna" and it couldn’t be that way, for now. Frantically, I tried to make it be the way I wanted it to be. I did not want to wait upon the Lord and let go!  “Why…burden me, Lord”  my frantic actions cried out.

Moses is so frustrated that he begs to have his life ended, as do so many people when they are at the end of the rope, so to speak. “Why, Lord, all this suffering; I can't take it any more," is the lament  that God probably hears all day long. The deserts of our lives are very difficult to handle. At times we wish it were over.  People walk out of their marriages with no effort to address the issues. People abandon  a job without planning for their future. Young people look to other religions  for various reasons.  Kids drop out of college--its too hard, or whatever!

When I am at the place where I think I have no where to turn, the Lord reminds me that my heart will be restless until it rests in Him. Frantically, I might be seeking relief from things, persons or from me—sources that are unable to bring me to refreshing waters.  “Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened” the Lord says, “and I will give you rest.”  Rest in Me, in the solitude before the Blessed Sacrament, in Adoration, in prayer. Ps. 23 reminds me that “[b]y tranquil streams he leads me to restore my spirit. He guides me in paths of saving justice as befits his name.” When I drift off in “a ravine as dark as death,” (Ps 23:4), or on a path that only leads to more restlessness, the Lord’s “staff and [His] crook are there to soothe me,” (Ps 23: 4) if  I stop my frantic searching and turn to the Lord in quiet, humble, faith-filled longing for the Lord's help.

What about you?