Daily Bread

        For the sake of honesty, I procrastinated in writing this post for a bit. At first, I told myself it was because I hadn't connected the dots yet, that I needed more time to collect my thoughts and create some coherency in my musings. But even stopping to write down the idea that got the ball rolling was put off, so I can't stand by that excuse. Truly, I think I just kept avoiding doing it because in writing the following thoughts and dwelling on these verses, I had to look at my own failings. In order to share words with you about God's daily provisions and His calling for us to live for today, I have to confess to you that I worry about tomorrow. And next week. And next month. And next year. And about the most random scenarios of my life decades down the road. I don't live in a constant state of worry, but I am currently in a season of battling my old habits of worrying. So of course God saw fit to lead me down a road of thought that brought me here where I sit at my desk as a girl desperate to be rid of worry hoping to give others who may be in the same boat a stronger oar to row with. Or even just a tighter grip on hope and trust in an unfailing and ever-faithful Father.

        A few weeks ago, one of my friends was standing before the congregation to share his thoughts about Jesus being the bread of life and relating this to the Israelites receiving bread from Heaven in the wilderness. Then he said it just occurred to him that the prayer Jesus introduces to his disciples in Matthew 6 includes a request for God to give us our daily bread- Jesus is our daily bread, the bread of life, the bread from Heaven. The connections he made set my brain in a similar yet different direction. While he went the "bread" route, I went the "daily" route. I kept coming back to this thought of daily provision as the days went by, and more examples of this in the scriptures came to mind. I jotted them down in one of my notebooks after Wednesday night service a couple weeks ago, and it is these notes that are guiding the words I offer you here.

        One Day at a Time

        God didn't make everything all at once. He took it day by day. Each day served its purpose, and he didn't rush the creation process. He could have created it all in the blink of an eye, but he set the tone for living since before time began. If the Creator of life only lived one day at a time as a Holy God who works outside humanity's construct of time, then he's trying to model something for us. A daily living, the beauty and necessity of living life one day at a time.

        Fresh Daily Bread

        In the sixteenth chapter of Exodus, we see the children of Israel discouraged and hungry. They complained to Moses and Aaron. They would rather have been left in Egypt to die because at least there they had flesh and bread to fulfill their hunger. God hears their murmuring and decides to provide for them by raining bread from heaven every morning except on the Sabbath. They were to "go out and gather a certain rate every day" (Exodus 16:4). Moses prepares the people for this development, and the next morning, they find the bread as frost on the ground. Each man gathered exactly what he needed. The man who had a lot didn't have leftovers, and the man who gathered a little had enough. Moses then tells them not to save the bread for the next day, but some do: "Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank:" (Ex. 16:20) The bread was good only for that day (excluding the double portion they gathered to carry over onto the Sabbath, so they could uphold the law). It was truly daily bread.

    A Daily Rate

        King Jehoiachin was held captive in Babylon for thirty-seven years before the king of Babylon released him from prison. When he was released, the king set him above the other kings in Babylon and provided food for him the rest of his days. The king continually provided him food at a "daily rate for every day, all the days of his life." (2 Kings 25:30)

        Our King does the same for us. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God releases us from the imprisonment that is worry and continually provides for us. He gives us precisely what we need for each day, just like he did with the Israelites in the wilderness. He grants us the right measure of grace, strength, patience, wisdom, and joy. God's provision of blessings doesn't mean that every day will be full of ease, comfort, sunshine, and constant happiness, but rather the promise that He fills the emptiness within us every day. All the days of our lives. For as long as we are alive, our Father is providing for us physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally. In every way, in every need, God is there to supply the necessities. If we have Jesus, we have a daily rate.

"But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

(Philippians 4:19, KJV)

        Today's Mercies

        In the aftermath of Jerusalem falling to Babylon, the author of Lamentations grieves the glory, beauty, security, and peace the Israelites lost. Most of Lamentations is reflecting on the pain of their new reality. But the writer of Lamentations throws a couple verses of hope in there, too. Right in the middle of the book, actually. 

"This I recall to mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies

that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new

every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my

soul; therefore will I hope in him." (Lamentations 3:21-24, KJV)

       So, we see that the people were depending on the renewal of God's mercy every day. They still clung to hope because they knew that each new day was in itself a fulfillment of God's promise, His lovingkindness in action. The Lord was their portion, whatever he seemed fit to provide or allow within the day was ruled by his merciful and loving hand.

        Today vs. Tomorrow

        This is the core of the struggle. Keeping our minds and hearts grounded in the day we are living in to prevent tomorrow's cares from robbing us of today's joy, growth, and work. The truth is, we have work to do. We have seeds to plant. We have brothers and sisters to encourage. We have others to teach. We have holy moments of quietness with God to sit in. We have windows of prayer to be still in. We have moments to touch us today that will echo into our futures in little and big ways that we may not even consider as we walk through them.

• Jesus knew our human minds and hearts would be future-focused. He understood that our frailty would often lead us to scrounging for safety and security. He, more than anyone, understands the workings of our humanness, and he addressed our tendency to worry about the future in his sermon on the mount- specifically Matthew 6:25-34.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." (Matt. 6:34, NKJV)

• James touches on wholly living in the present in his letter to the churches. Now, his reasons for mentioning this were mainly rooted in the pride of the people, their lack of humility when it came to planning their futures. Yet, in these verses we see the importance of surrendering our tomorrows to God. What James was telling the believers then, he was also intending for us today: You don't control tomorrow, and your today could be gone in the blink of an eye. Why squander today trying to lock in your tomorrow? To worry about tomorrow, to plan our future without the understanding that our Father holds our lives in his hands, is foolish. It weakens us when we have been called to live in the strength of our Creator.

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit'; Whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.'" (James 4:13-15, NKJV)

        Make the Most of Today

        It's almost impossible to make the most of a moment when our minds aren't in the present. When we're dwelling on the past, itching for the future, or lost in what could be, we aren't really living our lives where we are. Which is dangerous, especially when we make a habit of it (speaking from personal experience, here). There are two scriptures I thought of where we are encouraged, reminded, admonished, to make the best use of our time. To steward our time well means to stay in today. To be where our feet are. To accept and praise God for where he has us because his work is being done in us and through us as long as we are on this earth.

        In Hebrews 3:12-15, we are charged with the duty of encouraging each other daily while we have the chance. We are called out of our comfort and routine to embody the compassion and confidence of Christ that enables us to spur each other on every day. If we, as individuals, are struggling to take it one day at a time, shouldn't we turn our thoughts to consider that our friends, neighbors, family members, coworkers, and fellow laborers in Christ are also struggling? I often find that when I'm in the middle of a trial of my faith, I wonder who else I know could be going through hard times. And it has made me more aware of the random thoughts I think toward my friends who live hours away from me or those who I live near but don't see every day. It has made me take those thoughts as opportunities to pray for them, to text them, to check in on them. We can't afford to put off doing good for others today because we are not guaranteed tomorrow. Apostle Paul understood the importance of truly living in the day we are blessed with when he wrote his letter to the church at Ephesus: "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." (Eph. 5:16, NKJV)

    There is good to be done today.

    There is joy to spread today.

    There is wisdom to be gained today.

    There is pain to endure today.

    There is sorrow to lay at Jesus' feet today.

    There is trust to be strengthened today.

        Strength for Today

        God gives us all we need for the day we are in. Just like the bread from heaven, the daily rate of King Jehoiachin, God's mercy, and our Savior's love, each day will be filled with the sufficiency we need to make it through. We can depend on God's faithfulness, for it is everlasting. He's proven himself to us time and time again. That doesn't mean we won't be faulty beings who forget just how good he is when we're in the middle of a dark night or a deep pit. But it means that we can praise him when he reminds us who he is. 

"As your days, so shall your strength be." (Deut. 33:25 NJKV)

        But our strength is not our own. We draw strength from the one who has all of our days in his hands. We can be weak and broken with Him because he is strong. We live each day, each moment, by God's grace, and all he asks of us to lean into that. He provides everything we need for every day. He always has and he always will. You can depend on that.

        Take-Aways

        My thoughts are now yours to do with what you will, but I want to leave you with something more concise, maybe more portable, you can leave here with. A poem and a song.

    

Oh, ask not thou, How shall I bear

The burden of tomorrow?

Sufficient for today, its care,

Its evil and its sorrow;

God imparteth by the way

Strength sufficient for the day.

- J.E. Saxby