Daily Bread

This scripture reminds me again today that God is just so on time. I guess it wasn’t enough that this verse is part of my current week’s Bible study, When You Pray.

I know we, my dear man and I, are not the only ones who wonder how long we can continue to pay these prices for groceries, gas, electricity and insurance and doctor bills and pet care. And so many of you youngers, have childcare and education bills on top of all that not to mention a house payment, rent and car payments. Oh and sports and camps and…

I know you know without me continuing to look at your budget spreadsheet. It’s all so overwhelming.

Yet, here we are. In various states of financial and emotional health, you and we are still here. Some of us are more anxious and some feeling more secure. Some of us still working and stretching the income as far as possible. Some of us wondering what we could do to try to create some income.

We (all of us humans) have always needed to recognize our dependency on God. But we’ve been taught by all the earthly voices to fight for our independence. At least in our western cultures, this is true. For sure, it’s the American way. But honestly, every time I read my Bible I recognize that this is simply the fallen human way.

Regardless, in every life there comes a moment of revelation. We all come to this moment through countless scenarios. It could be a cross road or a ditch or an abyss of utter darkness or an aha light bulb moment. But sooner or later, we come to a moment of revelation that God is absolute authority, sustainer, King, Creator and we, the created, are not. We are dust. And will return to dust one day.

Some of us agree and turn toward God. Some turn away.

But God desired to make us in His image for His delight. He breathed life from His Spirit into each one of us and gave us free will to choose the way of relationship with Him or life our own way.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”
‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭5‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Like it or not, agree or disagree; there comes a time in every life when it is essential to cup my empty hands and hold them forth with anticipation that God will fill them with all that I need for today.

This place sounds, possibly to you, like the scariest place on earth. We understand that because we live there. And has been just about the scariest valley road we’ve ever journeyed. We won’t lie.

We, my dear man and I, wouldn’t have chosen to live in the daily bread place. To be transparent, we’ve always been quite satisfied to work, pay bills, run about doing and being all that we wanted all the while feeling completely self-sufficient and self-satisfied. Yet, we also liv d this way in deluded certainty that we were wholeheartedly following Jesus.

We wanted to believe we were Christ followers, full time and committed, like Peter. We would never reject You, Jesus.
But as long as we thought we were in control of our lives, we did as pleased and felt very good about our independence. We were living as we had been taught. We had a spiritual life on Sunday and a regular world life the rest of the week.

The ditch taught us something different. The cart of our own making, containing all of our possessions, accomplishments and treasured relationships, one day lost a wheel and we limped along. We compensated for the damage until another wheel fell off and at that point we careened into the nearest ditch.

Everything so organized and neatly packed in the cart was dislodged. Some things were lost and others damaged. The worst was the damage done to each individual and corporately to our family.

We crashed, my dear man and I, and we didn’t know how to fix the damage. How did we get here? We could have stopped for help anywhere along the way.

So, what will happen to us now?

So many questions and no place to look, but up. God, will You help us?

At some point, when our hands are empty, bruised, swollen and lacking the ability to do for ourselves, we return to that childlike state. We hold out our hands, and ask for help.

Dear reader, are you there? We are too. We’ve lived here with our hands held out for our daily bread for almost a decade. It’s really a beautiful place to live. Note, I’m not declaring this an easy place to live. At least not at first. Everything we’ve ever been taught about satisfying self will be challenged in this place.

Don’t get me wrong, like all people, we don’t live perfectly in this surrendered place. We, my dear man and I, still try to assert our willful desire to do for ourselves. But more than ever in our lives, we have come to understand what was always true.

We are not our own. We’re not in control of our lives. We are not God. We are dust.

God is good. He sustains us and provides a bounty of peace we could never contrive on our own.

Hallelujah! Thank You, Jesus, for our daily bread!

Eyes on Jesus and Shine,

Lisa