Daily Bread

So I had something I wanted to share today. It is kind of long but well worth the read. I've been doing a little daily study that I just got and well...as God always does, He put right what I needed right in front of my face! He seems to be doing this a lot lately. I have recently been talking to a couple different friends about worrying and being anxious and I just keep saying, God will provide, and just to trust in Him because it's all in His hands. I don't know that I had been applying that as much as I'd been dishing it out to everyone else to hear. So here is what I read today that I really enjoyed...

“More than a million people had been led straight into the desert. It was clearly a deliverance, but to what? There was no food. But God had a solution. He always does. Manna, a mysterious bread from heaven, would fall to them daily. They could gather only enough for one day, no more (except on the day before Sabbath). If they gathered more, it would rot. It could not be hoarded. They would just have to trust, at the end of each day, that the manna would come again on the next day. They would just have to believe God for tomorrow. “In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions,” God said (Exodus 16:4). Saving up was not an option.

Saving up is not an option for us, either. Yes, we can buy a week's worth of groceries at a time, but that's not what Jesus is talking about. True bread, heavenly bread, is given on a day-by-day basis. We cannot pray or worship enough for the whole week on Sunday. The directions we got yesterday won't apply today. We cannot tithe the first portion of our paychecks and think that our sacrifice is done for the month. The daily bread principle is unalterable. You can't store up the things you need from God. You have to keep coming back for them, keep trusting Him for them, day after day after day.

Why is this so? Because God insists – absolutely insists – that we have a relationship with Him. Relationships must be maintained. He knows well that if He gives us our supplies for a week or a month we will only seek Him once a week or once a month. The temptation is great to gather in all that we can today – physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. But the daily bread principle is always at work, in all areas. There is no loving trust when there's a full storeroom.

Just as our loved ones are not content with one “I love you” for the year, God is not content with a periodic appearance before Him. Manna doesn't work that way, and neither do relationships. Ask for daily bread in every area of life. And come back again tomorrow.”

Luke 11:1-4

“You will never need more than God can supply.” - J. I. Packer