Manna on Main

What would it be like to rise in the morning, wipe away the remaining fragments of dreams, stretch out your tired frame, pull on your work clothes, shuffle your feet down the hall, past the bathroom, through the kitchen, out the back door, across the basketball court, and into the street - breakfast is waiting.

It's always waiting, and it's the only thing on the menu. You can't grow food. Anything you raise slips through your fingers before it can create sustenance. This is it. Your daily bread. It's always there. You can't stop it from coming. You can't create or recreate the meal that fills you.

This food provides life, and you are dependant on its provision.

It's a scary thought. Being dependent.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a lady about Sseko, a company Liz, Tyler, and I started in Uganda. We employ some awesome young ladies so that they can go on to University. Sseko is a means to an end for these girls. And the end is changing and shaping their reality, it is being empowered to make choices, live with dignity, and have the freedom to dream.

The lady had a funny response, "Good for them. Earning their own way."

Their own way. This is important.

With the rise of prosperity, comes choice, freedom, and seemingly individuality. You can define your space, time, and friend group when you can move anywhere, eat anything, and form your living habits around the clock. There is a defined system of belief in this country, a religious belief, a political belief, a cultural belief that tells us that it is best to go at it alone.

It just makes me wonder about the manna. It makes me wonder if the Lord saw us when he said, "otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget...who brought you out of slavery."

How did we get here? Wherever here is.

Are we supposed to go at it alone? Are the girls in Uganda making it on their own? Are any of us?

benjamin