The Phil Files

Bread. Generally not a very fancy product. While it may be the staff of life, we normally take it for granted. Yet Jesus chose it to be the way we remember Him, share in His Body, and celebrate our life in community together.

What we call bread can vary widely from place to place and table to table, yet it is still called bread. And Jesus teaches us to pray for daily bread. Not very fancy, not very extravagant, and certainly not very special … unless you don’t have it.

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be they name.

Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors;

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

In praying for daily bread, we are reminding ourselves of the miracle of God in the most common of things and in the most ordinary of shared events — eating bread together. We are to recognize God’s miracle in the most ordinary of circumstances — sharing bread together in a common daily meal.

In my weekly Heartlight.org post, Grace Beyond the Miracle, I suggest that maybe the greater miracle in Jesus’ healing stories is often missed: the restoration of people back to their normal, everyday lives. There is something miraculous about the ordinary … about having daily bread and recognizing that it is a gift from our Father’s hand.

For that article, I suggested some questions that include below:

What is your favorite miracle of healing or exorcism performed by Jesus?

• Why?
• How does the miracle end?
• What is accomplished by the ending of this miracle that is as important as the miracle itself?

How does our sense of individualism impact our seeing the importance of restoring a person back into community found in so many of the miracles of Jesus?

• How would many of Jesus’ miracles have been incomplete without this “grace beyond the miracle” occurring?

How have you felt the miracle of:

• … forgiveness?
• … fellowship?
• … acceptance?
• … service?
• … mission?

Could these have been fully experienced without sharing them with someone else or in community?