Matthew 6: 25,31-32
"Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?"
"Do not worry then, saying,‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ...your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and all these things shall be added to you."
So the past few days God has overwhelmed me with a thought of the fact that everything here is temporary, fleeting, evanescent...we are here for a VERY short time, when you think about time in the sense of all of eternity. Everything that we hold will, at some point, slip through our fingers, or be forced painfully from our hands.
What do I hold on to? What do I allow to become more important than my treasures that are eternal?
For the next few posts (because it is just too much to put into one) I will be processing through the idea of things that I hold on to. Things that God wants me to let go of. I will have a main scripture reference that He has given me and then just lay out my thoughts. This is more for me to process through all the stuff that is going on in my head, so thanks for reading if you do....
Daily bread. Bread is a huge part of the culture here in the Czech Republic. It is one of the most eaten foods. They have pastries, dumplings, kolac, cookies...every meal has some sort of chleb in it. It is a life line. You see people walking all over town carrying bags of bread and rohalik.
Food is at the center of any culture. Many times as Americans the first thing we associate with another culture is their food. When I say Mexican, or Italian, or Chinese we think of food and maybe our favorite American style restaurant of those cuisines.
What He has shown me through this scripture is that He will provide, but I can't expect Him to provide for the next day. He gives us what we need daily. It doesn't say give us this day the bread we need for the rest of the week, month, year, lifetime...it says daily, today, right now. When we pray this prayer we are asking God to meet our needs for today.
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus gives warning not to worry about tomorrow and what you shall eat. Only live for today. For this moment. Take what I give you today. Don't expect anything tomorrow. I will take care of that. You just accept what I have for you today.
The Israelites in the wilderness were conditioned to taking only what they needed for one day. The mana would be there everyday. Why take more than you need? If they did take more than they needed, it would be spoiled the next day, and then you just have a mess to clean up. : )
Something I have had to adjust to here is going grocery shopping almost every other day. Since I don't have a car to load up at Walmart, I have to carry everything in my back pack from the store to my flat, which is about a 10 minute walk. I have learned to only buy what I am willing to carry back to the flat. This means that we can't really stock up our fridge with food for a few weeks. We have to buy only what we need for the next few days. Then a few days later we go back to the store.
God will give us what we need for today. Anything after that is living in faith that He will provide. The question is do I trust Him to keep His word? Do I trust Him to meet those needs tomorrow?
Life is more than just eating. These things that we worry and concern ourselves about should not be the focus of our attention. SEEK HIS KINGDOM and all these other things....He will provide!
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