Eating at the Enemy’s Table

May 2008

We remember the fish, which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna. - Numbers 11:5-6

My mother is from South America. The style of food that she, my grandparents, and aunts and uncles prepare has a soft place in my heart. Growing up, I admit I had an aversion to it. It was so spicy and … well … soupy. Everything was made in gravy that was filled with a variety of Caribbean tastes. My young taste buds couldn’t handle it in those early years, but now, things are different. After years of feasting on the treats of my mother’s hometown, I am not only used to it, I long for it. When the holidays roll around each year, I sit on the edge of my seat waiting for the delectable curried meats, a variety of spicy vegetables, and rice dishes that my taste buds have become accustomed to. I even spoon some special hot sauce my mother has delivered from Guyana on my plate for more pepper action! Thanksgiving and Christmas just aren’t the same without the tastes of “home” on my lips. Anything other than the various spices and intense flavors piled on top of one another on a huge plate is not my idea of the holidays.

The clenches of Egypt’s slavery had been dissolved by the hand of the Almighty God. After hundreds of years in slavery, the Hebrews were free. Yet, shortly into their journey towards the land of Canaan, they began longing for the tastes of Egypt. Most assuredly, they had not liked the menu when they had first arrived on Egypt’s soil under Joseph’s rule, but over time, they’d grown used to what they had been fed all those years in slavery. Its strong, pungent flavors had been addictive and enticed the 2 million refugees who’d escaped to freedom. Now, they desired to eat again at the enemy’s table.

To the Hebrew children, Egypt’s food seemed far more exciting than God’s on this journey in the wilderness. The contrast between Egypt’s food and God’s gift of manna is a stark one isn’t it? God couldn’t have chosen any food option that would have been more opposite than the manna that fell from heaven every night. The purity of the manna is so clearly seen against the backdrop of the six menu options mentioned in Numbers 11:5-6. The manna, given as a gift from God to his people, was designed not only to sustain them in their journey but also to begin the process of weaning the Hebrews off of the tastes they had grown accustomed to in Egypt. God seems eager, doesn’t He, to begin as soon as possible and complete the process of taking the taste and desire for Egypt out of the mouths of the ones He loves. The best way to do this was to not offer them anything that would excite the tastes that they had become addicted to in their years in slavery. To start living like free men and women, they had to first start eating like it.

You have an enemy. He has spent his time and attention coming up with a myriad of menu options that were suited to keep you and me satisfied with a life of slavery. He   wants us to become addicted. His goal is to let us feed on the things that will cause our stomachs to turn at the thought of “purity and devotion to Christ”. He hopes that we’ll miss the variety and spice that He offered and long for it even while we have already made a decision to journey with God. As long as He can keep us longing for what He once gave us, our journey will be thwarted.

May we feast on God’s goodness and love while steering clear from the lure of eating at the Enemy’s table. May we say with the Psalmist that above all else:

My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God (Psalm 84:2).