“The daily bread is the gift of God. Never let me divest it of its glamor and glory, as if it were a thing common and usual. Never let me partake of it without reverence and the giving of thanks. There may not be about its bestowal the same marvel, and the same manifest miraculousness, which marked the coming of manna to Israel: the King of Kings prefers to accompany me in modest quietness, rather than in flaming majesty and regal dress. But behind the loaf and the grain, above the farmer and the miller, the Father of Lights stands unseen. He opens His bountiful Hand, and my wants are met. Would it not be an easy thing for Him to spoil my harvests and to leave me destitute? All to Him I owe. Apart from Him I must go hungry and thirsty, a beggar and in rags. And do I praise Him for His largesse as I ought?
“The daily bread is a parable of higher and more sacred things. The children of Israel saw in the manna something unearthly and inexplicable…I sit at my food and drink, and a window should be opened for me into a world more wonderful and more divine. I should see Him Who is the Bread of my undying spirit, Him who gives me the Water of an everlasting life. Him, too, I must seek and find with the return of every fresh morning. I cannot thrive on the grace of yesterday, nourishing and ample as that was for yesterday’s need. I must welcome, hour after hour, and minute after minute, a new pardon, a new sanctity, a new wisdom, a new strength to foil and overthrow the world and the flesh and the devil, a new peace of God to garrison my heart and mind. With each new sunrise mine ought to be a mightier and fuller Christ.”
--taken from In The Secret Place, Alexander Smellie
Photos courtesy of Thistledown Cards
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