Wanting Time To Pass

Their bread will be like mourners’ bread; all who eat of it will be defiled. For their bread will be for themselves alone; it will not enter the house of the Lord.  Hosea 9:4

Life is a gift.  Every day is a clean, twenty-four hour slate upon which we can write with our lives, yet sometimes we curse the gift of time.  If it’s Monday, we can yearn for the following weekend.  If it’s winter, we long for summer.  Let life be miserable enough and we will wish for death itself.  This is to eat of the bread of mourners.

When my own sin leads me into Egypt, I must watch myself eat foreign bread to live.  The bread is tasteless on my tongue and it only manages to enable me to live another meaningless day in an existence I despise.

Oh, to be in so desperate a state that what I must consume to live is detestable, even to the Lord.  I am forced to segment my daily life from my holy practices.  Who I am and what I eat during the week can not be introduced into the house of worship, the place where I try to convince myself that I am okay.  I am really a double agent.  I live one way before men and become inauthentic before God.  Though I may try to bring my sacrifices to the temple, they are unacceptable.  The bread is defiled.

There is another kind of bread, the Bread of Life.  Any who eat of it will consume Life itself.  For a while, eating this Bread may commence a time of weeping and repentance, but this is all only a temporary resting place on the journey.  The enemy may try to convince the one who weeps – while eating the Bread of Christ – that this is really the bread of the mourner.  This is a lie.  Satan is an illusionist.

The Bread, your daily Bread, is the One who served his disciples breakfast on the shores of Sea of Tiberius.  It is being warmed on the coals and the Master is calling you to come and eat.  Just as Peter sat by Jesus, ate the bread that he offered, and momentarily tasted the bread of humility, his life was about to be infused with power and authority.  Never would his life be more significant.

     I eat of you.  I am fed today by Your hand.  I curse the food of Egypt, Jesus.  You are Life to my being.  Amen