After God’s people left Egypt under Moses’ leadership, the Israelites found themselves, very quickly, having to learn an important life lesson: life in the wilderness demands total dependance upon God for your day-to-day needs.

WATER…you need to depend on God…FOOD…you need to depend on God…SHADE…you need to depend on God…a SOURCE OF LIGHT in the evening, WARMTH on cold nights, CLOTHING, PROTECTION from wild animals, PROTECTION from other nations, DIRECTION in your wonderings, etc.

The context for “man does not live by bread alone” had to do with the Israelite’s need to daily depend on the Lord for food. God, in His kindness, miraculously provided mana which allowed for millions to eat, be strengthened, and continue on their journey for many many days. This is what the passage says:

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (Deut. 8:3).

When I read a passage like this, it is clear to me that part of God’s purposes in giving us Ela was to teach us that none of our needs (including the day-to-day needs) are ever met apart from His “say-so.”

There have been many situations where we needed encouragement, wisdom for moments of tension in our marriage, discernment for parenting at a hospital, courage for life-threatening procedures, a new engine for a broken down vehicle, a new heart!!! Many of these things were completely outside of our control…yet, were provided by the word of God’s command.

It is crazy to think about the fact that a year ago Ela was needing help to go up and down steps, that she was sleeping with oxygen, that she was in about a dozen meds, that she was only able to tolerate 1-2 spoons of food per day.

TODAY…that is…1 year and 2 days post-transplant..she benefits from normal oxygen sats 97%-100%, she’s down to about half a dozen meds, she’s eating full meals and snacks (she specially loves Japanese noodles and popcorn!). We just had our church picnic and she played in the play ground, chased older kids who were roller skating, played basketball with me and Leslee…simply amazing!

We couldn’t have made this happen…how’s this possible?

“Man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”