Bread of Life
My goal for the year was to learn to make bread. Myself, that is. I’d made plenty of successful loaves in my grandmother’s hand-me-down bread machine, but I wanted to personally transform flour, water, and salt into something edible. I just had to figure out how to actually do that.
After watching countless videos of other homemakers sharing tips and tricks for how to create and maintain a sourdough starter, I finally signed up to attend a class in person.
“Don’t be intimidated by sourdough.” The instructor passed her beautiful jar of thick, bubbly starter around the room for observation. “Honestly, you can’t mess it up. In fact, the only way to kill the starter is to under feed it. As long as you keep adding flour and water regularly, it’ll stay alive.”
So it is with the life of faith.
“Our Father in Heaven, hollowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread…” (Matthew 6:10-11)
The prayer Jesus taught his disciples included this necessary request. And they, of all people, knew God could provide them daily bread, physically, if needed. After all, their ancestors ate fresh manna for 40 years in the wilderness. And they would eventually see Jesus multiple 5 loaves of bread so that 5000 people would be fed.
But none of those things happened on their own. They were a work of God to take care of His people. And just like that sourdough starter, you and I need consistent nourishment from Him if we’re going to make it. Sustainment from His spirit. Feasting on His words. That’s what will keep us alive.
Add anything else to a starter, a dash of sugar or a measure of salt, and it won’t work. Withhold water and flour for too long, and the starter is rendered ineffective – only good to be tossed in the trash.
A lesson for us all. That nothing else will do, dear friends. No one else will satisfy. We can add in all the things this world has to offer, and in the end, death is still the result. Nothing can save us, in this life and the next, but the Bread of Life.
Are you feeling malnourished? Weak and frustrated? Depressed and longing for more? More than the monotony. More than the world’s offerings. More than the temporal things that still leave us with hunger pains.
Come to the table, dear friend, and be fed. Open your hands and receive the abundant life God has for you. You can find it sitting in a sanctuary on Sunday morning. Tucked between the infallible pages of scripture. When your knees hit the ground or you whisper a prayer of faith on your drive to work. In the middle of the night when you wake with a song on your heart. Or when the music swells and your hands lift in praise.
God is willing to not only provide whatever it is you need, but He desires to give you a purposeful, fruitful, productive, abundant, and eternal life.
