BREAD

“I am the living BREAD that came down from heaven. 

Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”        

 John 6:51 niv

If we pare life down to the bare minimum, bread would probably make the list.  Who doesn’t know what bread is?   Who hasn’t ever eaten it?  It is a globally common food . . . from the most ancient of times.

I like bread.   I enjoy the great variety of bread that creative bakers have come up with.  I would guess that every nation, people group, and family on earth has bread that they have eaten their whole life.  I can’t imagine anybody on earth would not know some form of bread as a regular part of daily life.

I heard something the other day about bread.  It caught my attention, because I don’t remember hearing it before.  So I tried it.   

Get a bread that has been made and baked the simple, old-fashioned way….no preservatives.  Take a bite, but instead of gulping it down, chew it intentionally.  Start paying attention to all the flavors that start to happen as you chew.  I started noticing a hint of salt, but also other flavors I could not even identify.  As I kept chewing, more and more new tastes kept  emerging.  It was so fascinating and good that I was in no hurry to swallow.  And I found that when my piece of bread was gone, I kept getting little “taste memories” that reminded me of that taste-discovery.   It was 

suppertime before I even thought about a meal.   That piece of bread was fully satisfying for my day.  Some of the credit was to the handmade quality of the bread.  But some of it is how God created our mouths with tastebuds, saliva, and the interaction of grains, and simply letting all those elements work together with time.

Jesus said He was the Bread of Life.  For the past 3+ years, I have come to treasure beginning my day reading the Book of Life, and taking in the Bread of Life, Who always meets me there.  Taking the time, unhurried, and “chewing” on it for a while, brings more and more “flavor” to the Word of Life I’ve taken in that morning.  It’s not a time of lightning bolts or big emotional revelations.  It’s the little by little bites, and chewing on each.  New “flavors” emerge, and new discoveries.  Words I’ve known my whole life take on new meaning.  New life.  I don’t have to make the bread.  The Bread of Life comes to me. . . enough for that day.  Tomorrow there will be another.  It will never be gone.

Jesus comes so simply, so basically, in the routine of each day.  “Take.  Eat,”  He said.