Daily Bread

The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.

While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

The people of God had escaped Egypt and been a nomadic people 'wandering in the desert' for 40 years, before Joshua led them into the promised land. For 40 years they lived on 'manna' — a food provided by God, described as white and resembling coriander seeds — and now, encamped at a place called Gilgal, they celebrated the first passover (remembering part of their deliverance story) and ate their first proper land-produced meal.

God was refining and forming a people that would be God's representatives or ambassadors to the world. Cultures take time to form, and the story of the exodus and their time in the desert would become the bedrock of the history for this people.

While they were in the desert the people complained about their repetitive diet and lamented the great food they had eaten when in slavery in Egypt, but they persevered, and now, never again would they take for granted a simple loaf of bread. They would forever give thanks at every meal at which bread was broken.

For many of us, we have it so good don't we? We can walk into any supermarket and buy a bag of flour or a loaf of bread. We take our bread for granted, yet, can you imagine what it would be like to be denied such a basic foodstuff?

Today, give thanks for that which God, through our world, has provided. Take pleasure in the simplest of things — even a simple slice of bread. At your next mouthful, stop, pause, and look at it and say, "Thank you God."

Holy God
Thank you for your provision and for the food I eat.
May you continue to refine my own heart,
that I may live in a constant state of gratitude
for every good gift and for every daily blessing.
Let me never take for granted that which is set before me.
Now and forever.