One of the routines in worship is our practice of saying the Lord's Prayer in unison.
As you know, the Lord's prayer says, "give us this day our daily bread".
That's a simple enough statement. I suppose most of us think of it from time to time, but I have to confess that repetition doesn't always cause me to think more deeply. In fact as often as not I find myself having to work at thinking about what I am saying.
I suspect you experience the same.

So, give us this day our daily bread.
When we are eating all we need, and often, more than we need, this does not strike at the heart of our concerns.
But when you don't have enough to eat or enough to pay the bills, it is uppermost on the mind.
This prayer is for God's provision for our daily needs. Food to eat, a roof over our head, clothes, school supplies...you know the list. Maybe when we pray it next time, we should pause for a moment and think about the significance. It is enormously important.
And God knows it is important.
Jesus says, "your heavenly father knows what you need."
He says three things about that.

1. Ask for what we need
2. Focus our energy on living our life the way God expects us to. (seek ye first the kingdom of God)
3. Trust God to look after our needs. (Don't be anxious about what you eat or wear)
Because God cares and is reliable. (If God can look after birds and flowers, won't He look after you?)

And the problem is we do not fully believe that God cares and is reliable.
Maybe we are not so important that God will bother.
"He looks after birds and flowers", says Jesus. "Don't you think you are more important?"
 We say, "oh yes", but in the end are not so sure about it.
Maybe our need is too trivial.
Maybe God is expecting me to figure it out on my own.

And so we begin to live as though we had to find the solution to all our innermost needs.
That leads us into putting our energy into gratifying our own needs and wants according to our own road map or our own neurosis, not putting our life in order and living as God expects us to.

A similar situation develops early in the life of the newly freed Hebrew people.
They were newly freed and newly minted. Up to now there was no nation, just a large group of slaves with kinship ties back to Abraham. Now they are a people in search of a land where they would become a nation.
They had been released and brought through the Red Sea into freedom.
This is about a month later.
The food they brought from Egypt is starting to run out and their anxieties are starting to get cranked up.
Rather than going to Moses and asking, "How is God going to look after food?", they start to grumble.

In a rather sarcastic note, some even point back to how God set them free by bringing the angel of death to the Egyptian firstborn on passover night. They say, "why didn't God just kill us there where we had plenty to eat!"

Virginia Satir, famous family therapist says:

Most people prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.

How quickly they have forgotten all their years of forced labor now that the food supply is running out.

God says to Moses "I am going to send you bread from heaven."
He also says that his instructions will be a test to see if the people will follow instructions.
On the following morning God will send them this heavenly bread. Everyone is go gather the amount they need for the day and no more. If they try to gather in excess, it will go bad. On Friday, they can gather two days worth as they will not gather on the Sabbath. In that case it will not spoil.
Simple enough.

The next day comes and sure enough, there is a white powdery substance covering the ground.
It has a taste like coriander seed and people look at it and ask, "what is it?"
That's what the word 'manna' means, "what is it?"
Moses tells them it is the Lord's bread from heaven.

Everyone gathers enough for the day. Well almost everyone. Some don't listen and try to gather more than they need.
Just like they are told, it goes rancid before next morning.
They are fed day by day in this way all the time they are in the desert.
But we are told later on that once they entered into the land and were able to eat the fruits of the new land, this manna stopped not to appear again.

God does just as he promised and feeds them.
But God's provision comes in a way no one expected.
Their question is, "what is it?"
It's bread from heaven, but its not what they expected.

God promises to look after us too.
We have our expectations about what we want God to do.
Sometimes our expectations are met.
Not always.
Sometimes God's provision comes in ways we had not expected.

But at the heart of it is God's expectation of us:
1. To trust God that he will look after us.
2. To pay attention to doing what is expected of us.

Did you know that there is a significant portion of Canadians who think they are going to secure their retirement by winning the lottery? It's true. A Maclean's magazine article says Canadians spend three billion dollars a year on lotteries.
Here is a thought:
You are not sure about your retirement. Ask God what he wants you do with the money you might spend on lottery tickets and give it to something God puts on your heart instead. Invest in being obedient to what God wants from you and see what He will do to assist you in your financial security.

Or ask what changes in your lifestyle the Lord might want you make, and be determined to do it.
See what God does in return.
Listen to what one couple discovered about bread from heaven.

In 1880, a Christian couple, George and Sarah Clarke, purchased the lease for the Pacific Beer Garden.

Promptly dropping the word Beer, the couple added the word Mission, and launched a ministry to homeless alcoholics and downtrodden men and women. Thus was born the Pacific Garden Mission of Chicago'the Old Lighthouse'the second oldest rescue mission in the United States.

Colonel and Mrs. Clarke bore the cost of the mission themselves, but as expenses grew and the ministry expanded, their funds ran low. Eventually the day came when they could not pay the rent. Attempts to secure the needed funds failed, and Colonel Clarke was told he had only 24 hours to make the payment. Otherwise, he would lose his lease, and the Pacific Garden Mission would close.

Throughout the night, Colonel and Mrs. Clarke prayed, asking God to guide and to provide in his own way and time. They reminded the Lord of the souls being saved each night, of the men and women whose lives were being salvaged. They asked him why they should find themselves in such straits while trying to do his work. But, determining to trust and not question, they remained before the throne of grace in simple faith and in earnest pleading until the breaking of dawn.

When they emerged from their Morgan Park house that morning, they gasped. What had happened to their front yard? It was covered with something white, something that instantly reminded them of the manna of the Old Testament. Looking closer, they discovered their lawn was filled with mushrooms of the very best quality, which was quite mysterious because it wasn't the season for mushrooms.

Gathering the crop, the Clarkes carted the mushrooms down the street and sold them to the chefs at the Palmer House, the famed hotel just off of Michigan Avenue, for a large price. The receipts were enough to pay the rent, with enough left over to meet other ministry expenses.

So, the Pacific Garden Mission carried on, its work undeterred.¹

Unusual?  Sure.
But Jesus said it too: Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and God will look after what you need for life.
It's simple, but its true.
God set the Hebrews a test. Can they follow instructions and trust me?
Can we follow instructions and trust him?

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Preached  Sept. 18, 2005