“Give us this day our daily bread.” Matthew 6:11
I’ve often been grateful Jesus reminds us in the Lord’s Prayer to only ask for a day’s worth of bread. I mean, what would you do with a year’s supply? There wouldn’t be room to store it; you couldn’t eat it all and it would go stale.
More on that in just a moment.
A few days ago, I was having this great little prayer when I realized I needed to go deeper.
So instead of just praying about all the specific issues I was dealing with and things going on in the world and with my friends, I boldly asked God for more understanding. To know Him better. To see Him face to face, as the Bible talks about.
“God, please show me Your face, Your power and glory.”
(And for the record, the word “face” is used here metaphorically. God is Spirit and does not have an anthropomorphic face.)
Anyway, the point is, I realized my need to see and understand and know God more fully. Jesus said, “Ask and ye shall receive.” So, that’s what I was doing.
But I also wondered if I could comprehend and take in so much goodness and glory. I thought of Moses hiding between the rocks and seeing just a hint of God’s glory. See Exodus 33:18-23. God says to Moses, “Thou canst not see My face: for there shall no man see Me and live.” Who was I then, to ask such things?
But God also tells Moses, “I will make all My goodness pass before thee.”
Think about that for a minute.
All God’s goodness! That would have to be infinite–without any limit.
God revealed it to Moses. And it must be there for you and me too. I mean, God didn’t go anywhere.
But do we ask for it as Moses did? Do we seek it as Jesus instructed us to?
Once in a while, maybe….maybe…sometimes under certain circumstances. But do we consistently ask to see all God’s goodness? Or do we usually just ask for answers to our immediate problems?
So back to the daily bread.
If we are only to ask for what we need for today, how does that match up with God revealing all His goodness to Moses in a moment?
I have not thought I could possibly comprehend and accept all God’s goodness in a day. So, I have often just prayed for a little bit of that goodness or bread, just the little I need to get by.
Give me what I need today. That is a true prayer from the heart. Jesus encouraged us to take one day at a time.
But can God give us just a little of His goodness? Can He break up His glory and dole it out in little bits and pieces? This is an impossibility.
I suddenly realized that I had been asking for one of my day’s worth of “bread”–one day’s worth of goodness–thinking of a day as a 24 hour period of humanly measured time. But it could mean God’s day. “This is the day the Lord has made.” God’s day cannot be measured in human time. The Bible tells us that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years.
Think of a thousand years’ worth of bread.
That’s a pretty big logistical problem if we are talking about actual bread. Where would you put it all? How would you store it? Who could you give it to before it spoiled?
God is giving each of us one of His days’ worth of bread. This is the same as when He made all His goodness pass before Moses. Here’s a little formula I just made up: One of God’s days’ worth of bread=all God’s goodness passing before us.
And He will do the same tomorrow. And tomorrow. Every day we have all God’s goodness pass before us.
You have to ask for it.
God’s goodness, the spiritual “bread” that feeds us and sustains us, is always present. But we must ASK for it. We must accept it. It doesn’t take up space as actual, physical bread does. We must make room for it in our hearts, in our thinking. And we can do this or Jesus would not have asked us to.
How much bread can you eat in a day? Maybe a few slices. Maybe you don’t eat any.
How much of God’s “bread” can you eat today? How much of His goodness, glory and power will you ask for today? How much will you accept?
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Christians talk about about accepting Christ as Lord and Savior and rightly so. But it is not a one time event. It is a daily acceptance of Christ. We must eat this bread every day.
Christ represents the fullness of God. I’ve never thought of it in this way before, but maybe we could say that all God’s goodness which Moses saw is really the Christ. In Colossians 2:9, Paul talks about Christ representing the fullness of God. And in Ephesians 3:19 he prays that we “might be filled with all the fullness of God.”
I have a long way to go to accomplish all this. So please join me on this: to ask for and accept all God’s goodness every day and share it with those God puts in our path.
Blessings,
James
