This is My Body, Broken for Soul Food

Lately I’ve been thinking about bread.

Don’t you think bread is the ultimate comfort food? Warm, fresh-baked bread. Mmmmmm.

There’s a reason I’ve been daydreaming about bread. My life is in upheaval, lots of upheaval, so I crave comfort.

But, too often in the past, I’ve taken my need for comfort to food.

Food is just food. Food isn’t God.

Trying to get comfort from food is like trying to quench thirst with cement. You can keep drinking it but it’s going to do you more harm than good.

I don’t want to settle for anything less than true comfort so I want to find my comfort in Christ, like the Apostle Paul who wrote:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.” Corinthians 1:3-5

So, think about this. If I seek a secondary source of comfort, like food, then not only will I not be satisfied but I will have only food to offer others in their times of trial.

Which would you rather have when you are suffering? The touch of the God of the universe or a bagel?

So, back to bread. In the Bible, it symbolizes what we need on a daily basis in order to survive.

Funny we should be so attached to bread. It’s not a very stable staple. It goes stale quickly. It grows moldy fast. It doesn’t keep well. It’s best when it’s fresh.

To rely on bread for food is to need a new supply of food every day. Hence, the prayer Jesus used as a model for His followers: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

But that’s frustrating. Seems a little dicey. I don’t want to live quite so lean.

I want stores of bread. I don’t just want bread for today. I want to know there will be bread tomorrow. I mean, manna in the wilderness makes a wonderful Sunday school lesson but played out in real life, I’m with the Israelites in their exasperation with the process.

Throughout the Bible, though, God repeats the message over and over that His people will learn to trust Him and to be content with daily provision.

Agur, in Proverbs 30:7-9, prays this way: “Two things I ask of you, LORD; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.”

I don’t know much about Agur, but these are the words of a brave man. These are the words of a man of faith who loves the Lord more than he loves security, savings, assurance, five-year plans, 401K’s and contingency funds. This is a man who’s placed himself in the Lord’s hands, not Allstate.

The message Jesus delivered when He walked with us was quite different from the message we hear on the morning news. Don’t worry about clothes and food. Don’t fret about tomorrow. Trust that God will care for you just as He cares for the sparrows.

That makes for beautiful special music and lovely embroidered pillows but some harrowing, nail-biting late-nights in real life.

No coincidence that in John 6, Jesus tells us that He is the Bread of Life. He means to be the source of our soul food, the God of all sustenance and comfort, nourishment and satisfaction.

Did you know that the origin of the word “companion” comes from the Latin com- meaning “with” and panis meaning “bread” – literally “with bread.” Companion developed from the idea of “someone who shares your bread with you.”

That gives some depth to the message of this verse from Revelation 3:19-20: “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”

As I have endured the trials that came with this new year, I’ve been working on letting go of fretting about what I need beyond what has been supplied for that day. It’s not fun in any way but it’s not fun in the way that push-ups aren’t fun. You don’t do them for the fun. You do them for the benefit. 

I’ve also been asking God to help me know what it looks like to walk through this kind of tribulation with His companionship – not to plead and prod Him to fix my circumstance but to teach me to be present with Him in the midst of it. Deeper with Jesus – I write about it, right? I ought to be willing to go there.

I’m trying to turn to the Bread of Life instead of to bread. My instinct is right – craving bread for comfort but Jesus is even better than whole grain. My craving for bread is a dashboard warning light that my soul needs to tap into the comfort available in Jesus.

I am stretched to my limits right now with the crush of current circumstance but deep beneath the outer turmoil, I do hear a voice saying, “Be still, and know that I am God.” And I feed my soul on that truth and I am satisfied.

http://www.word-origins.com/definition/companion.html