Did your kids have a habit of saying “best ever”? Like “best brownies ever” or “best vacation ever” or “best bike ever”?
I find myself in that groove, too. Always searching for the “best ever” in recipes, fix-it’s, gifts, photos and family stories – whatever subject you name.
And when I started eating gluten free, I found good bread was one item that took some searching. And I did find it! Once I latched on to the buns made by No Cow Bakery in Castle Rock, I knew it was best ever.
So when Henry Blackaby’s devotional said we know how to use physical bread, I thought “sure enough” – I LOVE those buns for all my bread needs. But his next statement seemed rather obvious – he said, “Whenever we are hungry, we simply go and eat.”
Another “duh” statement I thought, until he asked his pointed question “Do we do that spiritually?”
As he reminded me, Jesus said if we believe in Him, we will never be spiritually hungry or malnourished for He is the ‘bread of life’. (check it out at John 6:36 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in Me will ever be thirsty again.”)
If you are like me, I thought back to when I faced a need, and it really was at heart a “spiritual need” but I did not immediately categorize it that way. I just looked at it as “rotten circumstances” or “bad luck” or even “you deserved that, Candy, because you weren’t paying attention”.
Blackaby’s point is so true, and I agree with it. Every time we face a spiritual need, it is a simple matter of going to Christ and allowing Him to provide us with what we need.
So simple. So what’s the problem?
Yes, Blackaby nailed it – sometimes we interpret Scripture based on our own experience. We can think of a time when we were ‘spiritually hungry’, we say. But Blackaby challenges us to consider that either God didn’t tell the truth about us not being hungry if we are His or we misinterpreted our experience. I think the latter is quite the more correct situation.
He followed this statement with another great question – “Could it be that we tried to satisfy our spiritual hunger with human resources?” Ouch. Yes, I run to friends and their experiences and Google and other not-particularly-reliable human resources.
Although Blackaby suggests we have relied on human resources so often that we may never have learned how to go to Christ for our own spiritual food, I don’t initially want to believe that.
Then I remember when I was going through the training and getting certified as a Christian Conciliator. I was assigned a wonderful mentor – she was an attorney, had attended seminary also, and was an excellent communicator. And she took me with her to a training once that fit the above discussion perfectly.
Our task was to present peacemaking and reconciliation principles to Seminary staff and teachers – a small group of about 15, including the President and key professors. My mentor, in advance, had contacted each person asking them one question – “To whom do you go when you have a problem, difficulty or struggle?” She and I were shocked at their responses – they went to attorneys, fellow staffers, good friends, professionals, etc. None of them said they went to Scripture or the Lord. But honestly, think about our own behavior – who’s our first contact in those times?
I think we like easy answers, quick fixes, and we just want someone to lay it out for us with simple to follow directions. That doesn’t sound like a description of Scripture, does it? It is a little harder to find what we need and then understand it fully. We have to work at it. We have to be familiar with it.
Actually, it is a simple matter to go to Christ and allow Him to provide us with what we need. We say we believe He has an abundance of resources, but do we truly? Do we act as if we believe that?
When you stroll through Scripture looking for the power of God, the resources and the riches that are His, it is not a matter of lack of evidence. Indeed, it is amazing evidence of His power and miraculous work and desire to provide us with all we ever need or want. In fact, Blackaby points to John 10:10 (“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”)
I think Blackaby was entirely correct when he said the problem is that we have not come to Him in faith as He invites us to do in the above Scripture. Our faith is weak – why? I think, for myself, I want a quick fix and I want to control what that fix will be – that’s putting faith in human resources. And I struggle to make myself sit back, take a deep breath and search His Scripture for what the Lord has for me.
Frankly, when I have been wise enough to do that, He has provided amazing answers and responses. Maybe not immediately, but right on time. And in a better way than I ever imagined. So I question myself about why my first response (when I am ‘hungry’) is not always to go straight to Him, the ‘bread of life’.
Remember, God gave manna in the wilderness to the Israelites? But they had to go out each day to receive God’s daily provision. And Jesus taught the disciples to pray “Give us this day our daily bread.”
As Blackaby so aptly reminded me in his devotional, spiritual nourishment (bread) is something you must seek daily. That means, as my dear friend Evelyn, age 104, says “you need to get your nose in the Bible.”
May we all partake daily in the great spiritual feast provided in Scripture! Love my GF bread but so much more do I love my spiritual bread – best ever!
