Daily Bread

This morning as I finished reading, I felt like the amount I had read of God's word was not beneficial to me. I struggled with what specific things to draw from what I had read, and though early on in my reading God had pointed out something important, I kept on reading as if I had to fill a quota.

God's word is often referred to as our daily bread as believers. There is great value in being fed with the word of God daily to keep growing in His likeness, our maturity in Christ. I want to take a look at Exodus 16, however, and the giving of a literal daily bread from heaven. God heard His people murmuring about not having food to eat, so He provided manna (literally "What is it") each morning. The people were to gather enough for the day and eat of it that day. They were not to keep any overnight as it would bring forth worms in the morning, and stink as well. The point was that they were not to be greedy, but rather to take what was beneficial for the day (Note: they took twice as much on the sixth day so that they did not gather on the sabbath, nor did God give any on the sabbath).

So how do we approach God's word? Well, I need to learn to take the tidbits He gives me and be fed full with them rather than reading just to read and getting nothing from reading. Think about this, if you had gathered bread one day, and by the next morning it had turned rotten, would you really want to gather more the next day? I often find myself reading too much and getting burned out in my reading times. Then I quit. Unfortunately I cannot feed all day long on Scripture and have it be beneficial to me. There are days when we must read more, but there are days when God will give us something to "chew on" early in our reading, and if we miss it, we might not learn anything.

My challenge to you? Read God's word. Let it saturate your life, and let God tell you when it is enough for the day. Take something away from your reading and apply it to your life daily, and see what fruit that brings forth.