Bread of Life

Saturday night after the adventures out in nature I made Puppy Chow to take as a treat to church. Happy Mother's Day- your children will have so much sugar in them they'll be bouncing off the walls. Yeah, obviously I don't have children and didn't really think that one through. Oops! Saturday night I ate so much of it I made myself literally SICK!

Sunday's topic was about Jesus and how significant it was the He is the Bread of Life. (I really love this eternal God truth..... It's not that He was the Bread of Life, but truly- HE IS!) We talked about how we need a bread that satisfies; one that doesn't leave us hungry; one that permanently nourishes our soul. The lesson was so appropriate given the lingering pain in the pit of my stomach. No matter how much puppy chow I ate- I got hungry again. No matter how delicious it was (and let me tell you it was delicious!)- it didn't totally satisfy.

Dave brought up the example of the people of Israel and their complete dependence on God for him to provide Manna when they were wandering in the wilderness. I had never really thought about it that way before... as a normal person listening to Moses telling us to follow him out into the wilderness and God would take care of us. For someone as detail oriented and plan-ahead as I am, the sheer logistics of this whole operation would have kept me from following. Sad really. Sad not only because I would have missed out on such miraculous provision then; but also sad because I know that I do that now too. In order to experience that kind of provision the Israelites were in a position of need. I don't find myself like this very often. Well, I guess I tend to think about being in need as needing money. But I don't think that's really the only way God can provide for us. It just seems to be the most easy concrete example to use all the time.

I do find myself in need all the time really. In need of a hug, or in need of comfort, in need of a rebuke, in need of a laugh, and on and on. I was convicted that I always go to others for those things. And I just wonder if that is "sugar" is eating away at my spiritual stomach instead of nourishing me like "bread" in the deepest part.

It also made me wonder about the line between trust and wisdom. Right now we are in a tough economic time, right? And everyone's advice is to save up, store up-- be wise! I feel conflicted about this- why should my money (I know- we're back to this!) sit in the bank when it could be helping someone. But then when I find myself "in need," I would probably say "Why wasn't I saving?" I know everyone else would be. :) I think about this alot... especially at the end of the month, right before pay day when I want to justify a pedicure or something. It's terrible logic I know. I KNOW! But seriously, it would be an 'easy' way to drive myself to need the Lord in a tangible way if I could just be rid of it. And yet, even in that reasoning (noble as it may sound or not) there is every kind of selfish motivation. It's so much more acceptable to need the Lord when I'm a few bucks short than when I'm wishing I had someone to go to bed with. So much easier to need the Lord when I want to buy a gift for a friend than when I want to eat the largest pizza Dominos will deliver. So much easier to ask the Lord to feed me some bread to fill my stomach than to eat from the bread of Life.

I'm real tired of the Low-Carb living I seem to be content with. (C'mon- you gotta grant me some cheesiness!) I don't want to feel so sick to my stomach anymore.... I want to be satisfied.