Fed by Grace

So think about how "Give us this day our daily bread" relates to "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not covet..."

When Jesus gave us this verse "Give us this day our daily bread" do you think he meant you should only ask God for whatever minimally it will take to keep you from dying? Did he mean that you could only expect bread and nothing else? Did he mean that God only rations out good in small doses? No. Consider this passage from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25 - 33):

"25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

All these things shall be added unto you - when you first seek the kingdom of God, when you let go of what you want or think you need and turn your desires over to Him, when you really first pray "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Then your every need is met.

So what does it mean then to steal or to covet?

Isn't stealing taking something that doesn't belong to you? And isn't coveting wishing you had what someone else already does? Aren't these both actions of someone who thinks their life is missing something good? something they need to make them happy or complete? And isn't stealing and coveting what happens when you don't trust God to supply your every need?

But see, right there the lie exposes itself. Did God fail you? Did He forget to make you complete or capable of happiness? Did He leave something out of your being, something that other people have but you don't and that you think you should? No. He made you right the first time. He made you in His image and likeness. So He made you perfectly.

OK so woopdeedoo, that's all nice and everything, but it sure doesn't always feel that way.

That's why the Lord's Prayer is so beautiful: it helps you to come home to God, to come back to the sanity of Divine Love's view of you: Already complete. Already loved. Already whole, and so, already holy.

So think about it: if your heart is being fed all that it needs every day, is being fed that Divine grace every day, and every day its famished affections being fed completely by Divine Love - what could you want to steal or covet? If you actually knew that all the good that God has is already yours, what you could possibly want to steal or covet anyway?

And that is exactly what Jesus is telling you here: if you feel covetous, or think you need to steal (whether money, things, or even the limelight), what would happen to you if you were to know instead that God is giving you every day, your daily bread? your daily grace? your daily everything? What if you turn that "something's missing" feeling over to God? if you trust that need completely to God? Really honestly hand it over to Him?

How did Jesus phrase it? "...what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

Exactly. How much more will your heavenly Father give you exactly what you need? And then how much more you should be asking it of Him! As you do, you will see your real desires awakened, molded and exalted. And you will wake up to see that those "things" you used to want start to look like cheap tinsle compared to what you really really need and want: fulfillment, satisfaction, completeness, joy, love, life.

But you sometimes think you need those material "things" first in order to feel those spiritual values. That's backwards. And that's precisely why coveting and stealing don't work. They are an illusion of a fix but without the substance of a fix. Why? Because they put the "things" - the symbols - first, and completely leave the real spiritual treasure these things/symbols are supposed to represent (fulfillment, satisfaction, completeness, joy, love, life) completely out of the picture.

So reverse the process. Forget the things and wake up to the spiritual gifts that God is offering you. Transform your desire from "stuff" to Spirit. Be willing to open your heart to those spiritual values first. Doing that moves your focus off yourself and what you don't have and onto God and what He has already prepared for you. This shifts your perspective off what you lack and onto God's abundance. This wakes you up to see, and accept, what God has already prepared for you.

The beauty of prayer is - when honest - that it is the way for you to lift up your famished affections, your real desires, to God. So be honest about your desires. Trust God with them. Hand them over to Him no matter what your family or other people or society think about them. It's none of their business. Prayer is always between you and God. Or actually, between God and you!

And if you trust God honestly, be ready, because God will mold and exalt you. He will hear your soul's deepest yearning and satisfy you in ways better than you could ever wish or imagine. The trinkets you used to covet or the attention you thought you had to steal will fade away as you start to see and embrace what Divine Love has already prepared for you. So look at what God is giving you. Focus on that grace. And you won't have any time for or interest in coveting or stealing. Why? Because there is nothing worth coveting or stealing compared to what God gives you.

Just ask.

Because God gives you "bread and fish" - what you really need. So why steal stones and covet serpents?

The 10 Promises and the Lord's Prayer assure you that your seemingly famished affections are already being fed by God's rich, rich grace.

Will you open your heart and accept it? What will you do? Right now, what will you do? What do you covet? What do you steal? How will you think about what you need or don't need? How will you put this into practice? Will you trust God with your famished affections? Will you accept His everpresent answer? Will you accept His daily grace?

Maybe start gently. Maybe just pray the Lord's Prayer as honestly as you can. Maybe just trust a little more and ask to see what Divine Love has prepared for you. If you do, you know it's gonna be great.

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

Let me accept Your abundant grace dear Father. You have already given it to me and everyone. It is already mine. Help me wake up to accept this gift. How empty everything else seems. How great is my need of You. Compared to Your love, what is there really worth stealing? What could I possibly covet that can compare to You?

Let me feel You feeding my famished affections. Let me feel satisfied. I offer up all my needs and wants to You because I know You will mold and exalt them so that they fulfill Your good will for me. Let me feel that beautiful Love of Yours filling me up to overflowing!

The Bible says "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." Let my prayer, my desire, be to feel your Love so alive in me that I actually wake up! So that I understand that I can - and do - live as Your likeness. This is my true state of being, right here and right now. Let me open my eyes and see that my life is already so full of Your grace and Your love that I can only want to share Your love and give it and live it as Your child, Your likeness.

Then I will be living, not only Your prayer, but also Your promise: I shall not covet or steal because every day You feed my every need with Your priceless grace, and because every day You give me the opportunity to share that love with others.

"Fed by Thy love divine we life, for Love alone is Life."*

Thank you Father-Mother God.




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* Poems, Mary Baker Eddy