It was February 3, and I was making my lunch. "Oh, Lord, not peanut butter and jelly again!" I sighed inwardly. I inspected my bread closely, picked off a little bit of green mold from the crust, threw it in the trash can, and spread the rest of the slice with peanut butter and jelly, with a little frown on my lips and a mild feeling of revulsion in my stomach.
Suddenly my complaining attitude received a check.
"You have Jesus."
Instantly, I saw it. I have a treasure of inestimable value in Jesus. I have incomparable riches, right here, now! I am vastly, extravagantly blessed.
A smile spread over my face and a genuine happiness came into my heart. My eyes lit up and the feeling of revulsion and complaining disappeared. I started praising Jesus aloud as I contemplated who He is to me and how grateful I am for Him. He transformed my attitude as I fixed my gaze on Him.
"Jesus! You are my bread, my water, my living delight. I praise you for being in my life. I thank you for the food you have provided for me. It doesn't matter what I eat or if I eat. I have you, and I will have you forever, and I will feast on the riches of your presence and enjoy the glories of the treasure that you are. You are more wonderful than a gourmet buffet. You are richer than chocolate. You are more to me than all the flavorful and tasty foods in the world. I offer myself anew to you, and I delight anew in the enjoyment of have you in your completeness available to me all the time."
Jesus as the bread of life became so real to me in that moment.
For the rest of the day, whenever I thought about food, spontaneous praise arose from my lips and I renewed my verbal declarations of delight in Jesus as better than any food.
And how tender and loving He is! He provides! That very day, I got the unexpected gift of a barbecued chicken dinner. Someone else gave me some deviled eggs and potato salad, which I put on a plate in the refrigerator for the next day's lunch. Since then, I have had more variety of food choices in my diet--cabbage stir fry, a can of tomato basil soup, fruits like grapefruit, banana, and mango, an exquisite dinner at the buffet at a neighboring resort last Sunday, and the gift of a dinner ticket for the buffet here. How tenderly He cares for His children, and how adequately He provides!
He provides Himself first, and He is more than enough. But because He knows our weakness and knows that we are but flesh, He also provides for the satisfaction and nourishment of our bodies. He provides more than we deserve and better than we expect. What a matchless thing it is to be in His service!
This post made me very happy :) And for the record, I love the title. It is very intriguing and creative. Do you have any idea how much you need to write a book? Because you really do. An autobiography. About your (or rather God's) awesome life.
ReplyDeleteAh, I'm glad it made you happy. I was very close to not posting it at all, because I didn't want it to come across as "oh, poor me, eating nothing but peanut butter and jelly." And I discarded about 5 ideas for titles before choosing this one, so I'm glad you like it! :-)
DeleteOne of these days, the book will come to pass. One of these days. It must.
This made me think of the book "1000 Gifts." As I'm still reading through it, it's amazing the many, many wonderful benefits we reap when we are able to "in everything give thanks." The section I'm in now is relating thanksgiving to faith and that when we murmur and complain it is revealing a lack of it. Of course, she has such a poetic way of expressing everything, but it really is a challenge to look at everything as ultimately for our good. Pastor Frederick's message yesterday was on James 1:1-4 and he said verses 2-4 need to be linked together since we aren't necessarily joyful for the trial (he gave the example of a flat tire on the way home from church) but for results that would be worked into your life. Oh, that I could remember this every minute of every day!
ReplyDelete