Manna (2)—You Do Not Ask - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2026

When the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.”

Lord, give us this bread always.
Exodus 16:15 ; John 6:34

Manna (2)—You Do Not Ask
Spiritual curiosity—that is what this Bible verse wants to awaken in us. A curiosity like the Israelites expressed with their question, “What is this?” However, at that time it did not refer to something spiritual but to completely natural food, to the “bread” that God gave His people during their journey through the desert and which they had to gather from the ground every morning. They did not yet know this manna, hence their question, “What is this?”

What would happen if we opened our Bible every day with this question to nourish our inner man? What a richly laid table we would find if we also attended the meetings of believers in which the Word of God is preached or studied together with this question in our hearts!

Spiritual curiosity, the thirst for knowledge in hearts that have already received an impression of the riches of God, genuine hunger of the soul, the desire for more, this is not found often among the Christians of our day. Could this be the reason for so much spiritual poverty and weakness? “You do not have because you do not ask” (Jas. 4:2). God will always answer a sincere desire for good with good: “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Ps. 81:10)!

Frank Ulrich

Jesus, the Bread of life, is given
To be our daily food;
Within us dwells that spring from heaven,
The Spirit of our God.

J. Newton