What is the most valuable thing you’ve ever held in your hands? 

Maybe you went to a museum and got to carefully hold a precious artifact, or maybe you went to a jewelry story and held a watch or ring which cost more than your house. It’s a strange feeling, holding something in your hands that has great monetary value. In movies, we often see how money causes people to act in strange ways. We’ve all seen the briefcase full of hundred dollar bills which causes people to fight and kill each other over it. We’ve seen the duffel bag full of cash or the velvet bag full of rare diamonds up on the big screen. Would it be fair to say that wealth, or the prospect of wealth changes people’s behavior? 

The truth is, there is a temptation with having too much, or too little, or just the right amount of monetary wealth. Today’s passage, from the book of Proverbs, gives us these options. Too much wealth and we may be tempted to elevate ourselves onto the throne of our own life. We look at what we have achieved and what we have in the bank and think in our hearts that we don’t need God any longer now that we can provide for ourselves. This is a foolish way of living that often ends in ruin in this life and always ends in ruin in the next. 

Also, if we have too little, we may be tempted to gain wealth out of desperation in ways which are dishonest. And it’s true, someone who is financially struggling is more likely to see theft or cheating as a justifiable means of getting by. Even those who are in the middle, having just enough to get by, not too much or too little, can also be tempted to take their eyes off of the Father. In each of these cases, the way people saw money, their perspective of it, changed the way they saw their Father in heaven. 

As the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years, God provided them with manna, which they gathered every morning and ate each day. This was their daily bread, and it was meant not to be hoarded or stored, but as a daily reminder that it was God who was daily providing for them. The Israelites made a lot of mistakes over those forty years, but the lesson rings true, and those wilderness stories were studied closely by future generations. Even kings like David and his son, Solomon, knew the importance of asking God to give them their daily bread. David expressed this in the famous 23rd Psalm and Solomon here in today’s passage from Proverbs.

How often do we pray prayers like this? Asking God to simply give us what we need for this day. Probably not very often. It makes more sense to ask for big things and dream about great wealth and blessings that our heavenly Father can pour down on us. Asking God for daily bread is an exercise in discipline and humility. It’s a daily reminder for us to connect with God in heaven and remember Him as the source of all we have. We cannot provide our own daily bread, no matter how much we see ourselves as the breadwinner. It is only through God that we have anything, and in following Christ, it is important to be reminded of this.

In the new testament, Jesus describes himself as the bread of life, much to the dismay of the Jewish leaders who heard it. They knew what he was saying, declaring that He was sent from the father, like the manna in the wilderness, and that he was the savior and messiah of the people. Jesus is still the same to each of us today. He is our daily bread, and nothing else could ever take his place. 


Let’s be people who leave a legacy of depending on God every day and seeing Jesus as our daily bread!