ANAMANA and SHAMA

ANAMANA!

Exodus 15:

22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah.[f]24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?”

25 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became fit to drink.

There the Lord issued a ruling and instruction for them and put them to the test. 26 He said, “If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

Chapter 16 

1 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?” Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”

17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 … Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.

19 Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.”

20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.

22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers[b] for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’”

24 So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. 25 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.”

27 Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. 28 Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you[c]refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? 29 Bear in mind that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days.

Chapter 17:

But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?”

Number 11

The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”

18 “Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. 19 You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the Lord, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”’

31 Now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits[a] deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction. 32 All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers.[b] Then they spread them out all around the camp. 33 But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.34 Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah,[c] because there they buried the people who had craved other food.

 

When I was a child, so my parents tell me, I had a few phrases they thought were funny and distinctive.  One was “FA FIES”, which means “french fries”.   I obviously wanted more ‘FA FIES’.  Another one, was “ANAMANA”, which is the title of my sermon today.  I would shake my head and strongly say “ANAMANA”.  Anyone want to take a guess at what “ANAMANA” means?

It means “I don’t want to.”  I don’t want to…leave the playground, go to bed, eat that food, do what you told me.  Whatever it was, the answer was “ANAMANA”.

Well, this past week, God brought me face to face with some issues in my life.  I really heard him say “Enough!” in a very strong voice. He wasn’t angry at me, but it was definitely a disciplinary tone.

I had been complaining to him about my interminably slow, seemingly unfair, long and drawn out weight loss.  It’s an issue I’m dealing with this time around in Celebrate Recovery, and particularly Step Study, and I was getting SO upset about the lack of substantial and quicker weight loss that I was actually giving myself panic attacks!

I was frantic about finding what was causing the inability to lose weight.  I know I couldn’t be eating more than 1000 calories most days, and swimming 2 – 3 days a week for 2 – 3 hours of calorie burning. People around me are doing the HCG diet and getting weight loss surgery, and losing a lot of weight quickly.  I have been jealous and angry about it, because I believe God has, in no uncertain terms, told me I am NOT to do either of those things.

I have been so frustrated.  WHY ARE THEY ALLOWED TO DO THIS AND LOSE THIS WEIGHT QUICKLY AND I AM NOT??? I’ve been yelling at God in my mind.

And everyone has a different reason for why I’m not losing weight – you aren’t eating enough, you are eating too much, you are not eating often enough, you are eating on too regular a schedule, you are eating fruit, you are not eating enough of a balanced diet, you aren’t exercising enough, you are stressing your body out with too much exercise.  That made me even more frustrated!

Now, I can hear God when He speaks directly to me, and I believe He DID speak directly to me.  For my fast this year, he told me to drop starches and grains, after I had been doing without bread, desserts, and sugars since June 2014. I thought, ok, I can live without starches and grains for 3 weeks.  Then when it was over, He said to continue without them.  Um…ok… but when can I have them again?  No answer. Silence.  I’m thinking, never again?

ANAMANA.

I complained to God that I was swimming an hour a day, 2 – 3 days a week, and still not moving my metabolism.  He said, I don’t want you to do that. I want you to swim and get exercise 30 minutes a day whenever possible.  No more swimming for an hour.  I want you to swim every day for 30 minutes.  But God, I get so tired, I don’t feel like it during the week.  ANAMANA.

So God countered, Then go to bed earlier.  Be in bed by 10 and try to go to sleep by 10:30 pm.  But God, that means I can’t watch endless episodes of Netflix in a row.  ANAMANA.

God finally said to me, “ENOUGH.  I’m tired of your complaining and not doing what I tell you to fix what you are complaining about. You complain and you say you want to lose weight, but you refuse to do what I tell you because you simply don’t want to do it.  You want to do what you WANT to do and NOT do what you don’t want to do because of how you FEEL or DON’T FEEL, and still get everything you want. It doesn’t work that way.”

So I asked, God, if I do this, will I lose weight faster than 1/2 – 1 pound per week???  God said, “No.  You are to do this simply because I told you to do this, because it is good for you.  You are to obey me and do this, even if you don’t get what you want from it when you want it.”

“This fast and this exercise regimen has absolutely NOTHING to do with your weight loss.  It has to do with your discipline, your health, and me changing you into someone who actually becomes more like My Son in thought, action and intention. Someone who obeys for obedience’s sake.  And, by the way, it is not a diet for a month, a year, or even 2 years.  This is what I want you to do for the rest of your life.  Discipline and change happens over a long period of time, and I want to change YOU, not your weight.”

I was stunned.  Then He said to me, “Welcome to Advanced Discipleship.  Obeying simply because I said so.  Obeying for obedience’s sake.  Obeying because that is what I ask of you, regardless of what the results will be. Obeying despite how you feel. Obeying so you become truly disciplined in every area of your life, and I can use you and trust you in areas I couldn’t do so before.”

He was saying ENOUGH of the bargaining, ENOUGH of the complaining, ENOUGH of not doing things (or doing things) according to how I felt or didn’t feel.  He had a one word response to my ANAMANA.  “SHAMA” – listen and obey.

It’s like he said, “stop acting like a child, because I am not going to treat you like a child anymore.  I expect from you grown up attitudes, thoughts and actions. I expect you to LISTEN AND OBEY.”

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Let’s take a look at the Israelites in Exodus 15 & 16, and Number 11.

God had rescued them from slavery in Egypt to bring them to a land of milk and honey.  What He didn’t mention was that the land He was talking about was presently occupied by other people, and the Israelites would have to fight to get it AND fight to keep it.

That’s why the journey starting from the Red Sea that should have taken a few days took 40 years.  He was changing centuries’ worth of attitudes, beliefs, and actions that would no longer suit them in their new life as free people who would have to learn how to survive and protect themselves.  It actually took the generation of slaves dying out so the generation of their children could move into the promised land, because the children didn’t have to replace the old mindsets – they were raised up to believe in the Lord.

From the beginning, He made provision, but repeatedly made rules along with the provision, to test them and see what they would do.  They had a bad habit of disobeying the rules, even after they would say they would obey.  In Exodus 17, they said they would obey God.  Moses went up to get the commandments and when he came down in Exodus 32, Aaron and the Israelites were worshiping a Golden Calf.

If they were faithful over a little, He would be able to entrust Him with more.  So he started teaching them discipline, little by little. First he trained them with the manna. Get enough for each day, and on the day before the Sabbath, 2 day’s worth of food. DON’T try to get any on the 7th day. There won’t be any.  And don’t try to keep any from one day to the other.  Some obeyed, some did not.

Why?  Some because they didn’t trust God, but many simply because they were used to living by their emotions, their feelings, their CRAVINGS. And when push came to shove, whenever they were challenged with not feeling good, they threw up how good it was in Egypt – remember, the land where they were SLAVES, had no rights, could be killed whenever Egyptians wanted – as the better alternative.

Discipline would get pushed to the side for cravings – for drink, food, meat, vegetables, fruit and even spices.

How many of us would rather stay in slavery, in bondage, to the things that are destroying us than have to do something we don’t want to in order to be free?

How many of us actually resort to doing things that will make us WORSE OFF and hurt us SIMPLY BECAUSE WE DO OR DON’T FEEL LIKE DOING SOMETHING?

  • I want to lose weight, but I still want to eat what I want to eat and not exercise.
  • I didn’t lose any weight today, so since I feel so down, I will eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
  • My weight is causing other health problems, which depress me, so to make me FEEL better for a little while, I’ll eat something that will make me sicker and make me gain more weight in the long run.
  • My sickness is depressing me, so I will eat things that will not make me healthier, or smoke things that will make me sicker.
  • My addiction is so hard to control – I’m just going to take a hit, or have a sexual encounter, or spend some money, or smoke something to make me FEEL BETTER for a moment.
  • I’m so depressed, I’m just going to go to sleep and not deal with any of my issues.

But God is saying to us that He is not calling us to break free from our addictions, nor make ourselves FEEL this way or that way.

He is calling us ONLY to LISTEN AND OBEY.  And that takes discipline.

We MUST learn to be soldiers, to fight against the enemy of our souls and protect ourselves from our flesh. And that takes discipline.

He is not even telling us to force ourselves to obey in our own power – He is offering us the grace, the supernatural power, to enable us to respond to Him in obedience.  But we have to give up all of our expectations of getting what we want when we want it, regardless of how we feel.  There is no bargaining with God.  We have to obey God simply for the sake of loving God, and trusting that He knows what He is doing in our life, and in the lives of those around us.

And that takes discipline.

In Step Study, in the Action Step, it asks “What is the true definition of willpower?”  Will power to me means

making the decision to

  • call upon and
  • surrender to

the power of God’s Spirit inside of us

in order to obey

whatever He is leading us to do

at that moment.

No automatic pilot anymore. No checking out emotionally and mentally and just going by what we feel. It is an intentional calling upon the Lord for strength and guidance before we do ANYTHING.

And that takes discipline.  The enemy of discipline and obedience is ANAMANA.

What is it that God’s Spirit is leading you to do?  What has He been drawing you to do or not do, but you have been responding with “ANAMANA”?  What have you been giving in to simply because of your FEELINGS?

We say “ANAMANA”.

God says “SHAMA”.