my daily bread

I read something the other day that really got me thinking this week and I am going to attempt to put these thoughts into words so I can remember them.  It was about how God provides for us day by day, just like He did for the Israelites when He provided new manna each morning.  Exodus 16:16 & 19-20 says "This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need...  No one is to keep any of it until morning.'  However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell."  Is that not how we often look at God's provision for us today though?  Do we want to gather up extra of God's blessings and provision for the future because we do not fully trust that He will provide new ones the next morning?  I know I do this every time I worry about the future or I obsess over the details that have not come together yet.  I especially have seen this come about in my own heart recently.  I was telling someone this week about how if you had asked me just nine months ago what I would be doing in 5 years or 10 years, I had an answer.  Now I can't even answer that about next year.  I was venting about how I have no idea what direction my life is taking or should take.  I went from a very happily married, exciting military life, where I was anticipating the wonderful stability of upcoming retirement with my beloved -  to suddenly, without warning, tragically becoming a widow and a single mom, who now has just about every door wide open and none that I particularly feel drawn to actually walk through.  I was crying out about how much I wanted to know where I should be in 5 years or 10 years because it all seems so unsettled and, to be honest, a little bit scary - my wide open future.  I mean, I know God has a plan for me and I trust that wholeheartedly.  But I also desperately want a "sneak peak" of 10 years from now and know where God has planted me by then - or even to just skip forward from this unsettled time of waiting to some type of tomorrow that has a forward course of motion that I can see and understand.  I guess what I really want is some kind of assurance about how God works my own life out for His purpose and with His joy.  The Bible promises that God works all things for good, but it does NOT promise that we get a sneak peak of how that looks or even that we get to participate in setting up how that comes about.  Those things are not for us to know or for us to worry about.

The Bible reminds us over and over again that God promises us daily provision.  Daily.  As in each and every day.  "Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."  (Lamentations 3:22-23).  "Morning by morning he dispenses his justice, and every new day he does not fail" (Zephaniah 3:5)  I have read and I know that His love and His justice and His mercy are new to us each morning, but I guess I never fully realized that that also means that I need to let go of trying to store up extra for the future.  He promises to sustain me for today.  And that is enough, because tomorrow He will do the same again.  And the next day again and the next day...  I am to daily, each morning, take just the measure of grace needed for that one day.  When I borrow troubles from tomorrow and attempt to gather extra grace to cover those, I end up with "stinky, bug-covered manna" - or a stressed and untrusting heart.  These thoughts bring a whole new light to the words of Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."  I do not need to know what God has in store for me in 5 years or 10 years or even tomorrow, because I can trust that He knows and that is enough.  His daily bread is always enough.