Imagine waking up in the morning and smelling the aroma of the sweetest things you’ve ever smelled. I’m talking about a scent so delicious it quite literally picks you up by the nostrils and floats you into the kitchen and sets you down at the table. When you look up, you see God with a big apron hangoing from around His neck. He smiles at you in the way that only a Father can, and reaches into the oven to pull out what can only be described as goodness. He sets it down in front of you and then sits down across from you at the table in complete, expectant silence, waiting for you to take that first bite. When you do, your eyes get big at the exact moment as your taste buds explode, while you feel the kind of satisfaction that you never thought possible.
I bet you didn’t know that God was a baker, now did you?
Our church has been deep into a series form our Co-Pastors where we have been diving into the Lord’s Prayer. Unfortunately that model has become a lot of mindless chatter, but through the teaching, it has taken on such a renewed meaning for so many of us. The online small group that I lead just finished talking about the part of the prayer that we talked about Sunday. You guessed it.
”Give us this day our daily bread.”
It hearkens back to God providing manna for their Israelites while they were on their extended stay in the wilderness. God instructed them to only take that they would need for the day, and when some smarties tried to prove that they knew what was best, God had the last laugh, and their manna spoiled. I’m thinking about myself here, but honestly, I pray for my daily bread, but I also get mad sometimes when my daily bread is not enough to last through the next day. Why?
Because then I have to go back to God and ask again. And in my head, that doesn’t compute. I mean, shouldn’t God get tired of me asking Him everyday for bread? Water? Wouldn’t be easier just to provide what we need for the week? The month? The year?
Where God is concerned? No.
Unlike us, God loves the “bother” of His children. He loves the sheepish, almost embarrassed meanderings into His presence to ask,”Abba, bread?” My two year-old, Emerie, uses so man of these two word sentences that often convey more than a million words. her eyes get big and adorable. She holds her hands out to me, and she asks simply for what she wants. There is no buttering me up. Just an earnest, honest need that she needs me to meet. She doesn’t care if I’m on a call. She knows I’m never too busy to answer her requests. And when I pick her up and take her to get what she is asking for, my heat swells as she enjoys her bread, or applesauce, or Gogurt. It is a moment that makes my Dada heart melt, and I’d imagine it is the same way for God. He never gets tired of us coming to Him.
As a matter of fact, He programmed us that way. And as much as we should love coming to Him, He loves it infinitely more.
This image of God as a baker is close to my heart. When Tricia and I got married, I could “cook” a mean bowl of Frosted Flakes, and make some amazing boxed pancakes. When she got pregnant with Kaila, our first-born, her sense of smell and taste got hijacked, so it was up to me to learn my way around the kitchen. As the years have come and gone, I have become the primary chef of the home. it brings me so much joy. I love it when they smell what I’m cooking and start asking questions. I love it when they sit down at the table and I can serve them their plates. I love hearing them bless the food and then dig in. But all of that pales in comparison to sitting back and watching them take that first bite of food. While I know the answer, I love to ask them,
”Is it good?”
I imagine God doing this same thing. That God is the baker means that His bread, prepared fresh every morning for us, is something to be experienced. It is His outpouring of love that manifests into every bite. It is His goodness, grace, mercy and blessing that hits us like the best food ever. That’s His manna. He delights in giving good things to His children. Which begs the question (posed by Pastor Jim Johnson),
How would you wake up every morning if you knew that God had a fresh loaf of bread in the oven for you? What if that were your everyday expectation? How would you go to sleep at night? Excited? Probably. How would you wake up in the morning? Grumpy? How could you? What I think God wants from us is that child-like sense of expectancy. Like a child waiting on Christmas morning, God stands at the ready to provide us with the “magic” of His presence every morning anew.
Fresh. Hot. The only thing in the world that can truly satisfy.
To that end, I move that we update the words of the Chris Tomlin anthem.
”He’s a good, good Baker
It’s who You are, It’s who You are
It’s who You are,
And I’m fed by You.
It’s who I am, It’s who I am
It’s who I am.”
The next time you bake some bread,
or a cake
or muffins...
I hope you smile and allow your heart to soar with love from God’s heart.
Be blessed!