HE opens HIS bountiful hand--
and my needs are met!
and my needs are met!
(Alexander Smellie, "The Secret Place" 1907)
Matthew 6:11
as much manna as he needed."
Exodus 16:21
My daily bread is the gift of GOD.
Never let me divest it of its specialness
and glory, as if it were a common thing.
Never let me partake of it without
reverence and the giving of thanks.
There may not be about its bestowal,
the same manifest miraculousness which
marked the coming of the manna to Israel.
The King of kings prefers to accompany
me in modest quietness. But behind
the loaf and the grain, above
the farmer and the miller--
my sustaining FATHER stands unseen.
HE opens HIS bountiful hand--
and my needs are met. HE could
easily leave me destitute--
apart from HIM, I must go hungry
and thirsty, a beggar and in rags.
All to HIM I owe!
Do I praise HIM for HIS bounty as I ought?
The daily bread is to be received in faith.
Morning by morning the men of Israel
gathered the manna. My LORD would prove
me, by keeping me a perpetual pensioner on
HIS charity, and a continual guest at HIS table.
I can never be self-sufficient.
I never can walk alone. I am
taught to cling and trust--
to look up and wait in hope.
The daily bread is a picture of higher
and more sacred things. The children
of Israel saw in the manna, something
unearthly and inexplicable. They knew
not what it was.
Just so, as I sit at my food and drink,
a window should be opened for me into
a world more wonderful and more divine.
I should see
HIM WHO is the Bread
of my undying spirit--
HIM WHO gives to me the Water
of everlasting life.
HIM, too, I must seek and find,
with the return of every fresh morning.
I cannot thrive on the grace of yesterday,
as nourishing and ample as that was
for yesterday's need. I am dependent
on GOD hour after hour, and minute
after minute, for . . .
fresh grace,
fresh wisdom,
fresh peace to garrison my heart and mind,
fresh strength to overcome the world, the flesh and the devil.
~ ~ ~ ~
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