Withstanding the test (Exodus 16-17)

God's desire is total obedience.  Some find that offensive or even challenging, but that's the reality.  It's interesting to me that God used manna to test the Israelites in order to find out whether or not they would walk in His law.  How would He do it?  Simple: they were told to collect fresh manna each day and to discard the unused portion at night.  On the sixth day, they were to collect a double portion that would not spoil.  The Lord tested the Israelites with this for forty years.  Would they learn to rely on Him?  Would they see Him as their portion and as their provider?  It took forty years to learn the lesson, and even then some of them were poor students.  If only we could learn the lesson of trusting God's provisions and obeying His laws sooner than they!