Daily Bread

I love just about everything about living in my new house, especially having my own little kitchen and being able to cook for myself and my guests. It's the first time I've had to make my own meals since moving to Burkina (I know, tough life), and I have to say I've really enjoyed it. I've also learned some lessons the hard way. 

For example, that one time I bought a dozen eggs but didn't really need them, and when I finally used them a week later they were all rotten except for two. Seeing that I actually needed them on this day, I ran to the market to buy a dozen more, only to realize when I got home that I had bought hard boiled eggs. That wouldn't do, so I made a final run to a boutique to buys one more dozen eggs, and the man behind the counter probably wondered why I had so many questions about his eggs. "Are these eggs good? They aren't boiled, right? So that means they are raw? When did they arrive? So they are fresh today? Are you sure?" 

Then there is that time I bought flour and stuck it in a jar, not realizing that I needed to fish out the maggots first. The next time I opened the jar, boy was there a surprise for me inside! A whole colony of little bugs with all their tunnels and babies. The more I thought about it, I realized I had already used that flour once to make some peanut butter cookies one evening in very poor lighting. I know I dumped the flour in without even looking, which means I ate those maggot cookies for days. I didn't know it then, but I know it know, and for some reason I've lost all appetitive for peanut butter cookies. 

Perhaps the most important thing I've learned about cooking here that is different from the states is how quickly things go bad. Fruits, veggies, milk, bread. It's all freshly delicious with no preservatives, but you've got to plan on eating what you buy in the next day or two, even if you wrap it up nice and put it in the fridge. 

That hot-out-of-the-brick-oven bread is so nice when it's fresh, but even if you wrap it up tight, your sandwich the next day won't be the same; it is going to be hard, chewy, and stale. 

It gives a whole new meaning to "give us this day our daily bread." 

In he United States, you can run to the grocery store once a week and get all you need to last the whole family for the entire week. But you can't really do that here, nor can you do that with the Word of God, which is our spiritual daily bread. 

We want to handle God's word that way, don't we? Just make a weekly run to church and get enough to last all week, but then we find our faith growing stale and we wonder why. Because it's daily bread, fresh with no preservatives, and we need to search it out every morning. 

All this makes me think of the Israelites in the desert when God provided manna in daily portions. Gather just enough for today, he told them. And what was their very first reaction? The same as ours: they tried to gather more than enough to hold them over, but by the next morning it was spoiled. God wanted to show them how to gather just enough for one day. He wanted them to learn to trust him daily for their needs. 

He wants to teach us the same thing today. In a world of Wal-Marts and Kroger's, this lesson is a little harder for us westerners to learn, but living in Burkina where my avacados turn soft and rotten in the same day has taught me to change my grocery shopping habits. It's simple: just get what you need for today and maybe tomorrow. Then go back for more later. Instead of stocking up and hoarding, just think about daily needs and live one day at a time. 

This applies to our spiritual food and drink, too. Let's not be once-a-weekers who fill our spiritual shelves with preservatives that we know aren't good for us anyway. Let's get our bread warm and fresh every morning by being in God's word and trusting him for our strength one day at a time. He will give us what we need for today, and we will trust him again with tomorrow. Stocking up and hoarding just doesn't work in our relationship with God; things get stale that way. He wants to be with us daily, satisfying our hunger with manna in perfectly sized, daily portions. 

His presence is our daily bread.