I remember learning in grade school that refrigerators were from the devil.
My teacher, very doubtfully a believer in Satan, at least assured us of the refrigerator’s nefariousness. Men were takers, you see — from Mother Earth and from the animal kingdom. These little boxes, opening their doors as angels of light, allowed greedy man to preserve his selfish spoils unspoiled. He could take and take and take without consequence for his hoarding. This technology, ascending from the underworld, all but solidified man’s gluttony and secured him as a scourge for those cowering below him on the food chain. Or something like that.
Fresh from slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel were free from refrigerant temptations. They needn’t wrestle with the ethics of food preservation (as we grade-schoolers must). God forbade it outright. They not only lacked food-saving technology; they lacked permission.
The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” (Exodus 16:4)
The God of Israel outlawed leftovers for his nation — “the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day.” They were told to eat until full, as much as they could — on that day. The next morning, any secret stash would breed worms and stink (except on the Sabbath day). His people’s survival depended upon daily miracles of God’s grace: “the bread of the angels” in the morning and quail in the evening (Psalm 78:25). Daily provision would meet daily desperation. There was no plan B — just him.
And this command had a design — “that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not.” Would God really show up every day? Would they trust him to show up every day? Would they follow his commands or wander after their own understanding? Anyone forced into Israel’s predicament is slow to give Sunday-school answers. He tested their faith — would they believe, day after day, that just enough would arrive at just the right time?
The life of faith is more unsettling than some light and frothy devotionals make it sound. Just walk with Jesus, one step at a time — like a tightrope walker crossing over a volcano, or Peter striding across the raging seas, or Israel wandering the desert without supplies. That one step sometimes feels like your last.
The Trial of Daily Bread
“Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11) — we’ve prayed it countless times. Full cupboards and crowded fridges make the petition seem like serenity’s prayer, not hunger’s. Although abundance, too, is his daily provision, it doesn’t quite feel like a daily answer.
Yet seasons of deprivation in the wilderness may propel our spirits to the request. Cornered by circumstances, the plea turns violent and the answer nonnegotiable. This prayer takes new life when the mind fills with the hornets of anxiety, when we crawl over hot coals of suffering, or when we wonder through sleepless nights whether the morning will ever come, let alone bread along with it.
Are you in such a season? Maybe you are trapped in the aftermath of another miscarriage. Maybe a spouse has betrayed you — how could life ever be the same? Maybe another lonely year slips through your fingers. Maybe you are more like the Israelites and wonder month by month whether you will have enough to pay the rent or afford groceries. How can you continue in your wilderness? By gathering daily portions. By praying moment by moment, “Lord, give me this day my daily bread.”
You do not have the resources to last much longer. Maybe that is the point. Such is the trial of daily bread. You do not have what it takes today to last until tomorrow or next week — he knows this; he planned it. You are not on a detour; you are being led further into his will(derness) to be tested, to be taught lessons that the land flowing with milk and honey cannot teach.
He means to rid you of your self-reliance. Back upon the wall, knees upon the floor, eyes raised to heaven — this is the posture we best learn dependence. Here he proves his faithfulness. He leaves us in the groan of desperation to finally hear the firmness in his voice: I am with you. I am for you. I have not forgotten you; I am teaching you not to forget me.
Forty years later, Moses reflects on the lesson of daily bread:
He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 8:3)
Man’s true survival had nothing to do with bread, even miracle bread. It had to do with God’s voice. His presence. His laws. Physical bread was only ever the prop. He brings you to the end of yourself, makes you hunger without solutions, strikes your resources to show you what has always been true: God brings his mercies morning by morning, refreshes them evening by evening. His word is true and his heart is kind. He brings us daily bread. Will we trust and obey him?
Reminders for the Journey
Are you in the middle of a wasteland? Are you being sorely tested and unable to comfortably go on without God’s daily attendance? Good. Better a wilderness with God than a paradise without him.
Three reminders may help you on your journey.
1. Gather from him daily.
God laid out bread for Israel in the morning, but it would melt when the sun waxed hot. They had a timeframe every day for each man to grab his portion for his family. Daily provision still needed daily gathering.
Notice the limitation to the miracle. God did not drop off the manna at each man’s doorstep. He did not magically fill their bellies with the proper amount. God would be faithful to provide, yes, but they must be faithful to seek out that provision. And this was part of the test of their faith. Anyone too distressed, despairing, or disbelieving to gather food would have famished in his house when bread lay just outside.
Sorrowful seasons, bitter months, and flavorless days are no excuse to leave your Bible unread, your church unserved, your prayer closet unvisited. Manna still lies outside every morning to be gathered by the hungry and the humble.
2. Resist shortcuts.
Jesus faced pressing needs in the wilderness. He, the new Israel, went without food for forty days, representing Israel’s testing for forty years. Satan was after him. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread” (Luke 4:3). Satan suggested he take the shortcut: Use his power to rid himself of the hunger. End the waiting, the wanting, the wandering. Fill the desert with food. Answer his own prayer for daily bread.
Satan tempts us in the same way. Do all in your power to command your needs away. No needs, less prayer, less God. If we had our way, our bellies would never grumble; we would have peace of mind and a lifetime portion. Jesus had such power, but he knew his Father’s lesson of the wilderness. Jesus answered the devil, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone’” (Luke 4:4).
Satan said, “Eat” when God said, “Wait” — a repeat of the garden. But here answered the second Adam, who knew that unbelief wants shortcuts where faith wants patience. Faith desires God’s zigzags instead of any other straight lines. Trust in your Lord with all of your heart, saint, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight (Proverbs 3:5–6). God’s timing is the best timing; God’s path, the best path.
3. See daily bread as daily blessing.
After forty years, Israel would enter the land flowing with milk and honey. They were finally allowed to harvest and conserve their spoils. Their abundance lessened the felt need of God’s provision. When were they most blessed?
When time has finally spoken all it has to say, I wonder if those who were burdened with daily cares and still met with Christ daily were not more favored. William Gurnall sketches this well.
Which, think you, speaks more love and condescend: for a prince to give a pension to a favorite on which he may live by his own care, or for this prince to take the chief care upon himself, and come from day to day to this man’s house, and look into his cupboard and see what provision he hath, what expense he is at, and so constantly to provide for the man from time to time?
Possibly some proud spirit that likes to be his own man, or loves his means better than his prince, would prefer the former, but one that is ambitious to have the heart and love of his prince would be ravished with the latter.
Would you rather have God ship you a year’s portion to alleviate your worries, or would you rather him visit you day by day in your distress, check in on your cupboard, and see how you are doing? Wouldn’t it be your highest privilege to have him bring precisely what you need every day, exactly when you need it? Would you rather be tempted to forget God in the prosperity of Jerusalem — or be compelled to remember him each morning as he leaves you breakfast with the dew?
Do not be so quick to leave that wilderness where your God ministers to your cries. He leaves fingerprints more visibly upon each mercy when he visits in times of need. It is well documented that such times eventually become the favorites of the saints. Not because such seasons were tearless, or because they themselves proved more than a match for the trial, but because, in the end, bread showed up every day and proved God was enough. The test of daily bread reveals the goodness of our blessed God.
Desiring God