I've prayed the Lord's prayer every evening with my children for nearly four years now. It's been such a routine in our home that, by age 2, Brooks could recite the entire prayer start to finish. Lately, though, the phrase "give us this day our daily bread," has taken on new meaning. The passages and verses the Lord has brought to my mind over the past month have been more than just nourishment; they have been life. I need them, long for them, pray for them. In this season, His words have been my manna. Each day, they've drifted down from heaven and fed my hungry heart. Each day, they've been new, particular for the day. He's given me words for writing and for comforting and for sharing.
But the past few days have been different. In the busyness (and delight!) of traveling back and forth to see our older two, I've been feeling a little deprived of this manna. I've been questioning: maybe He hasn't been sending it; or I haven't noticed; or I've been saving it up and it's going stale? Like a spoiled child, I've been a little sulky. Where's my present today, Lord? Where's my reminder that you see me, me, me?
This morning when I woke, I started praying that He'd provide my bread for the day. I opened my Bible, not quite sure where I was headed, and stopped to read a passage that caught my eye in John:
“. . . Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal. Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. . .”
In these verses, the Lord gifted me daily bread and a good laugh, issued a soft rebuke, and bestowed a new word of wisdom and peace for my starving soul: why do I ask for signs when I have the Son? Like these disgruntled men and women, I've been following Jesus around, not because I want to be with Him, but because I want something from Him. "Jesus, today I'd like fill-in-the-blank. Gimme."
But God, in His goodness and mercy, has been giving me manna even when I demanded it, then failed to notice its gifting. Even when His Words seemed flat, they've been giving life. The problem wasn't His provision, but my reception. I've been searching for the God who performs the impossible signs and wonders that I long to see, forgetting that the ultimate miraculous, the wondrous, the extraordinary, was when He came down from heaven and walked this earth--when He called us to Himself and asked us to reside with Him.
My foolish heart has been missing the point: Jesus is the miraculous; Jesus is the extraordinary; Jesus is my daily bread. Whether or not my Bible reading makes me leap or weep or feel nothing at all is irrelevant, because Jesus, God incarnate, Word made flesh, has written Himself there, and has written Himself onto my heart. So today, tomorrow, and the next, with the Lord's help, I'll stop demanding signs, and start enjoying the Son. The signs will come as He wills, but the Son is forever by my side.