Praying the Names of God - January 10
From Praying the Names of Jesus Week Four, Day Three
The Name
Without bread no one in ancient Palestine would have survived for long. So it seems entirely reasonable for Jesus, in what has become known as the Lord's Prayer, to instruct his disciples to pray for their daily bread. Yet the Lord also challenged his followers not to work for food that spoils, announcing himself as the only food that would enable them to live forever.
In fact, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which means "house of bread." After feeding five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, he shocked his listeners by declaring: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). This week, as you seek to understand what it means that Jesus is the Bread of Life, ask him to show you exactly what it means to feed on him.
Key Scripture
"I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." John 6:48 - 51
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Wednesday
Praying the Name
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" Luke 24:30 - 32
Reflect On: Luke 24:13 - 35.
Praise God: For revealing himself to us as bread that is broken.
Offer Thanks: For Christ's faithfulness to you.
Confess: Your lack of gratitude.
Ask God: To open your eyes to his goodness.
Remember the story about how Christ appeared to two of his disciples when they were walking to Emmaus, a town outside Jerusalem? It was a gloomy conversation, all about the tragedy that had unfolded three days earlier. Astonished by the stranger's seeming ignorance of the crucifixion of Jesus, the two travelers revealed their own ignorance by describing the death of the man who was walking right next to them. Then the stranger began instructing them. How could they be so slow to understand? Jesus laid it out from start to finish, reminding them of all the Scriptures that applied to him from Moses straight through to Malachi.
When they arrived at their destination, the two travelers urged the stranger to stay with them. Again the roles were reversed. As the three sat down for their evening meal, the stranger began acting as the host, taking bread into his hands, giving thanks, breaking it, and then handing it to his guests. Suddenly, in the midst of thanksgiving and bread breaking, the two travelers knew exactly whom they were dining with — the same man who had fed the five thousand, who had called himself "the bread of life," who had died on a cross three days ago!
I wonder how many times we are like the two disheartened travelers. We act as if Jesus is a million miles away, though he's standing right beside us. Like the disciples on the road, we feel abandoned and bewildered, far from the God who promises to be with us always.
A friend of mine recently told me how discouraged she had been about her seven-year-old son. David was often impulsive and irritable and seemed clueless about how to get along with other kids. A loner at school, he could be a terror at home. She knew her son had a neurological disorder that contributed to his bad behavior. She had done everything she knew to help him, and she had prayed nonstop that God would heal him. Why hadn't he? Where was he? She was so hungry for a sense of Christ's presence, for tangible evidence that he cared about David and about her.
Suddenly her thoughts turned to the summer that was winding to a close. Despite David's difficulties, the last couple of months had been fun. She thanked God for the good times they'd had together as she recalled them one by one. Now that she thought about it, she realized David had been a lot calmer lately. There had been fewer bad episodes, fewer tantrums. Thank God for that! Maybe the new medicine was finally working. David had been eating and sleeping better too, come to think of it. And she was grateful for the neighborhood kids who had befriended him. David had spent nearly every day of the last month playing with them. The more my friend expressed her thankfulness to God, the more she found to be thankful for. Why hadn't she seen it before?
It's like that with most of us. We long for tangible evidence of God's love, but we fail to see it, in part because we have not learned to be thankful. It's not just that God likes to be thanked. It's that we need to thank him. Expressing our gratitude is like holding a little celebration in God's honor. It's a way of feeding on his goodness, reminding ourselves what he's done for us. Thankfulness opens our eyes to God's faithfulness, which in turn nourishes our faith. No wonder the word "Eucharist," a common name for the Christian commemoration of the Last Supper, comes from a Greek word meaning "thanksgiving."
Skipping gratitude is like skipping the meal God has prepared for us. Without it, we merely move on to the next need, feeling hungry and empty without the faith to believe that God will sustain us. Not long ago, a friend confided in me that he no longer believed in God. To him all religions seemed like fairy tales concocted to make people feel better. I felt sad for him, realizing how tragic it is to watch a sunset, to listen to waves breaking against a shore, or to hold a child on your lap without having someone to thank.
If you are feeling hungry for God, spend some time right now thanking him for everything good in your life. It doesn't matter if your list is short. Just start thanking him for the good you can see. Then try to make gratefulness a habit. If you do, you will be surprised at how quickly your list will grow and how steady your sense of God's abiding presence will become.
For more from Ann Spangler, please visit her blogspot on Christianity.com. And be sure to check out Ann's newest books on AnnSpangler.com. To hear more from Ann Spangler, sign up today at annspangler.substack.com.
Meet your spiritual ancestors as they really were: Less Than Perfect: Broken Men and Women of the Bible and What We Can Learn from Them.
