The Kitchen – #70

Welcome back friends. I’m so glad you are here. 

Before I get into this post, I just want to thank you! Thank you for showing up, for reading my words, for sharing them, sticking with me, and most importantly, thank you for your words of encouragement. You have no idea how much I cherish each one of them. Your words have not only kept me going with writing, but it has also caused me to be more giving with my words of encouragement to others. We all need someone to tell us, “well done” when we have worked hard and I appreciate you being willing to do that for me!

Thank you!

This post is going to be my 70th, and I’m not sure why, but that number feels big to me. In the writing community that I am part of, Hopewriters, they encourage you to celebrate the small wins. Writing 70 blog posts definitely feels like a win to me, so I’m celebrating! 

Would you celebrate with me by writing in the comments or sharing on Facebook or Instagram something that you are celebrating today?! It could be as big as a new job, or it could be as small as you got your kids out of the house without having to tell them to get their shoes on! It doesn’t matter the size of the win, it’s worth celebrating! And I’d love to celebrate with you!

Ok, let’s get into it…

You may remember this, but before I wrote the Easter series (#65, #66, #67, #68), I was working in collaboration with my pastor, Rev. Dr. Blake Wood, to bring the Lord’s Prayer to your mind in a fresh way. 

In those posts, and in these next three posts, we will continue to walk through the rooms of prayer in God’s house. I encourage you to go back and refresh your memory by reading the Lord’s Prayer and previous posts, but here is a brief recall…

The Porch – Our Father who is in heaven…

God the Father, in the fullness of love, invites you onto his porch. In welcoming you onto his porch, He, the perfect Father, is calling you by your true name, His daughter or son. In welcoming you onto his front porch, he is saying that He loves you and as His daughter or son, you are chosen, loved, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, sealed with the Spirit, and that he is preparing a place in heaven for you with him. (Eph. 1-2; Three. Small. Words).

He says, “You are my daughter, come up on the porch.”

The Trophy Room – hallowed be Your Name…

The Trophy room is the room where you remind yourself of who God is and what He has done for you. 

For example, I love to think about God as Creator. He created the heavens and the earth, how amazing! That’s huge, and then I like to personalize it. He is Creator of the universe, and yet, he also created me. He created Phillip and my children and my family and friends. 

Another example, God is a deliverer. He delivered the Israelites from slavery to the Egyptians, and he also delivered me from slavery to sin. 

And in response to reminding yourself of who God is, we hallow his name, which means to give Him a full heart of your most passionate praise.

The Work Room – may your kingdom come and your will be done…

The Work room is the space where God is working! And in his kindness, He invites us to come alongside him and work with Him on what He holds dear – you, your family, your community, and the world. And as you begin to understand His will and his heart in specific circumstances, we can pray in agreement with His will, offering to be part of His will being done. 

What a privilege!

Next, we enter into the Kitchen. Ahhh, the kitchen, the place that fills bellies and warms hearts. Let’s take a look as to what God has to say about His kitchen…

The Kitchen – Give us this day our daily bread…

No matter where you go in Egypt, from the bustling city of Ciaro, to the rural villages, you will find random pieces of bread. Everywhere. On sidewalls, in stairwells, on the street corners. Everywhere.

Why? 

Because Egyptians view bread as life. In fact, their word for bread is “aish,” which literally means “life.” An Egyptian author says, “Egypt’s relationship to bread is not one of freedom, but of necessity.” You must have bread in order to live.

Bread means life. 

So why does Jesus ask God to give us our daily bread in His prayer? What are we asking for when we say, “Give us this day our daily bread?” 

There are four areas that we are asking for when we ask for our daily bread…

Provision

When we are asking for provision, we are asking that our basic needs are met. This includes our physical needs, emotional needs, relational needs, spiritual needs for today. 

Jesus tells us in Matthew 6 to “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear…your heavenly Father knows that you need [those things]. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

So often I, and most likely you, am so focused on tomorrow and what is looming ahead. We spend much of our time and mental energy on things of the future, and we worry about that instead of trusting that God will provide for today. 

So what is it you need today? Do you need literal bread? Ask God for it! Do you need bread in the form of having patience with your rebellious child? Ask God for it! Do you need clarity on a decision? Ask God for it! 

And trust that He will meet your today need. 

Prescription 

You know those moments when you are walking through something and you open God’s word, or you pull up your Bible app, or get a scripture text from a friend and it is exactly what you need? 

That’s what the prescription is all about. When we ask God to give us our daily bread, we are asking Him to prescribe exactly what we need from His word for today. 

Two people can go to the same doctor and will most likely get two different prescriptions because the prescription is specific to that individual person. Likewise, when we come to God, and ask Him for our daily bread, He will give us a prescription from His word that will specifically guide us for today. 

Jesus said in Matthew 4 that “man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

We aren’t meant to cherry pick what we like about God’s word, we are meant to live off of every word from the mouth of God because every word is essential and has the potential to change our lives. 

Every word from the mouth of God has the power to sustain us. 

Perspective

In asking God for our daily bread, we are asking Him to give us perspective on how to leverage our circumstances, whether they are challenges or opportunities, to fulfill our God-given call for today.

God has given all of His children a purpose. I believe my purpose, or my call, in this season is to use my voice, speaking and writing voice, to encourage and inspire believers to not settle for good enough in their relationship with Jesus, but move towards being truly solid in who they are in Christ. I hope I am fulfilling that as I write this blog! But also as I write this blog, my God-given call is to tend to my son who wants “mommy time.” 

We all have unique, personalized God-given calls. Whatever your call is, the foundational call for all believers is to bring God glory. If we ask, God will give us perspective to use whatever we are walking through, whether it is the highs of life or the lows of life, to give Him glory. 

Presence

Here’s the thing, when we ask God to give us our daily bread, we are asking Him to provide, we are asking Him to prescribe and we are asking Him for perspective, but the foundational truth of all of that, is that we are asking God for His presence with us.

Jesus said in John 6 that He is the bread of life. When we are asking God to give us our daily bread, we are asking Him for Jesus. We are asking Him for that personal, intimate relationship with Jesus that informs every part of who we are. 

Jesus is the ultimate source of our physical, emotional, spiritual and relational thriving no matter the situation. 

Jesus is our bread, our life, for today and every day. 

Today

When the Israelites were wandering through the wilderness and needed food, God provided manna. God told them to only collect enough for one day, unless it was the Sabbath and then they could collect for two days. If they wanted to plan ahead and stock pile some, the manna would rot and get maggots in it. 

The manna was only meant to last for one day. 

Today. 

God could have given the Israelites enough manna to last days, weeks, months or even years. Instead, he chose for it to be good for one day at a time. 

Daily.

Today. 

God was teaching them and training them to trust. To trust that He would provide for them day by day.

So are you asking God for your daily bread? Even harder, are you trusting him to provide the bread you need for today?

Give us this day our daily bread…

“Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” John 6:35.

God, help me to trust you for today.