“Moses, we’re tired of this manna. Manna in the morning, manna in the evening, manna day after day. Give us meat to eat!”
The Lord responded to the peoples’ demand by saying, “Now the Lord will give you meat and you will eat it, you will not eat it for just one day or two days or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month….” 1
God’s spectacular promise busted Moses’ budget. The amount of meat God promised did not fit into Moses’ mental calculator. “And Moses said, ‘Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot and you say I will give them meat to eat for a whole month. Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?’”2
In spite of Moses’ doubts, the Budget Buster refused to deviate from the provision he promised. “The Lord answered Moses, ‘Is the Lord’s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.’”3
We normally associate the word budget with the word finances, but we have placed ourselves on many other budgets: ability budgets, time budgets, talent budgets. We refuse to go beyond our abilities, talents or time, because budgets place definite boundaries on us which we are afraid to overstep. So we remain locked in human inabilities, human wisdom and understanding, and human limitations.
But God’s love for us compels him to bust our budgets by asking us to do more than we ever thought possible. God only busts our budgets so he can free us from human limitations. Freed from human limitations, we experience God-size provision. “Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It brought them all around the camp to about three feet above the ground. No one gathered less than sixty bushels.”4 A Bible scholar estimates that the Israelites gathered about 20,160,000,000 quail. That’s the way the Budget Buster works. He does “…immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.”5
How can we trust the promises given by our heavenly Budget Buster?
Let Go of Our Human Explanations
Moses’ mental calculator powered up when God promised a one month’s supply of meat for millions of Israelis. Moses’ mind searched for human explanations that would force God’s promise to fit into his human brain. Must we slaughter all our cattle? Would there be enough if we catch all the fish in the sea? Moses reasoned.
Neither God nor his promises can fit into the human intellect. He can be known, but he cannot be fully explained. We can hear his promises, but never comprehend them. So, God simply told Moses that HE would carry out his own promise without human help.
Moses believed God’s word by letting go of his own human explanations. The leader of Israel decided to trust the Lord with all his heart and not lean on his own explanations. “Moses went out of the tent of meeting and told the people what the Lord had said.”6 When we can’t explain God’s greatness or the largeness of his promises, we choose to believe anyway. We let go of our human explanations and lay hold of the God who gives big promises.
Faith in God’s bounty rescues us from enslavement to our budgets. Then, divine power equips us to do what we thought we could not. Divine energy makes us more than we ever thought possible.
Go Beyond Our Minds
Trusting in the Lord with all our hearts and not leaning to our own explanations equips us to go beyond our minds. No, we don’t go out our minds, we go beyond them. Faith is not intellectual suicide—faith is depending on God’s infinite intellect. Should we expect an infinite person with an infinite genius to give human-size promises? Impossible! All God’s promises are like his person – immeasurable.
God knew what it would take to keep his promise to Moses. God knew he needed 20,160,000,000 quail. Moses had probably never seen more than a few quail at a time. But Moses stepped out of his budget by going beyond his mind. He trusted God to fulfill his own promise. Moses couldn’t figure things out, but he figured on God’s help and God came through.
We must set budgets for ourselves. We must live within our energy level, our financial situation and our human abilities. But sometimes it’s imperative for us to trust God’s promises and allow him to carry us beyond the boundaries of our budgets. Our heavenly budget buster enjoys performing miracles of provision. When life demands more of us than we can deliver, God will meet all our needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.7
Footnotes
1. Numbers 11:18-20
2. Numbers 11:21-22
3. Numbers 11:23
4. Numbers 11:31-32
5. Ephesians 3:20
6. Numbers 11:24
7. Philippians 4:19
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We cannot always choose what life does to us. We can’t prevent all the accidents that beset us or our family. We can’t select the frailties that come or the difficulties our children face. But we always choose our responses to whatever life brings us. Why can we choose our response? Because you “can do everything through Him who gives [you] strength.” (Philippians 4:13)
