Daily Bread Means Daily

“Give us this day our daily bread.” ~Matthew 6:11

One thing that I am quickly learning through this new job of mine is what it means to depend on the Lord for daily bread, what it is to be totally dependent on Him for strength and nourishment in each new day. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so keenly aware—even in Mozambique—of what it is to need God to give me strength every single day. Not just coming to Him to be refreshed and recharged here and there. Not even just coming to Him every morning to spend time in the Word, in worship, in prayer out of desire for more of Him or desire for deeper relationship. It’s more than that. This kind of daily dependence is borne of necessity, out of the deepest part of my being, where I know that I know that I know that I can’t face the day without Him.

The thing about relying on God for the day’s bread, for each day’s grace, strength, and endurance, is it’s just that: daily. He promises me enough strength for the day and invites me to come to Him with each new day. Taking something as stressful and overwhelming as my job currently is to me one day at a time is more than a figure of speech or a piece of good advice. It is a requirement for survival. Because, like the Israelites had to rely on new manna from Heaven every day and couldn’t save one day’s manna for the next, I can’t store up the strength the Lord gives me today for tomorrow. I can try, but it will be spoiled and full of maggots. Today’s strength won’t be the fresh and nourishing strength that I need tomorrow. It’s enough for today. And I need it all today. Turns out God is about the day by day, about our continuous dependence on Him and Him alone.

This principle of day by day is so often counter-cultural for me. Our culture teaches us to plan for the future, to set goals and work toward them, to have long-term career plans, savings accounts, and Roth IRA’s by the time we reach our mid-twenties. Our culture teaches us to live today in the context of tomorrow. None of those things are bad in and of themselves. They are wise and diligent principles that teach us to be good stewards of the lives, gifts, and resources God has given us. Absolutely. But that worldview is incomplete. It is not borne of complete and utter dependence on our Lord and Savior, on our Source of Life and Strength. In our focus on building well-planned, disciplined lives in (or for) the Kingdom, we so easily miss Him. We miss the deeper truths, greater wisdom, and more valuable riches of living dependent on God alone.

There is an intimacy in the Lord that can only grow out of total, day by day, minute by minute reliance on His life, strength, and provision. There is an intimacy found in the day by day surrender that cannot be found in anything else. It is in that place of desperation, as we cry out to God, knowing that we can’t possibly survive the day without Him, that we encounter our own brokenness and inadequacy—and His healing and grace—most deeply. It’s our daily dependence that breaks us, that opens us, that allows Him to go deeper than He could otherwise. It is also this place of having to trust Him daily that teaches us to trust Him more fully and more deeply than ever before.

Isaiah 58:10 says that “if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” I’m struck by that phrase, “spend yourselves.” It’s more than just give of yourself. To spend yourself implies that there’s nothing left, that you’re not holding anything back. You’re not saving any part of the strength He’s given you today for tomorrow, just in case. You’re pouring it all out today. That’s huge. It’s overwhelming and risky and scary. Oh, but the promise that follows: Your light will rise in the darkness. And not only that, but the Lord will guide you always. “He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” (Isaiah 58:11). When you spend yourself in behalf of the needy, broken, and hungry; when you give what He gives you in each day, you find in Him the ever-renewing satisfaction of your needs. It’s counter-intuitive. The world’s wisdom would tell us to hold tightly to whatever we have in a high-pressure situation, because we might need it later. But the Lord says, spend it and you will find a strength that does not fail. It is when you pour it out rather than store it up that you discover the everlasting Source, the Living Water that will transform you into a spring that never stops flowing.