August 4, 2025

Today's Reading: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-26

Daily Lectionary: 1 Samuel 18:10-30; Acts 27:27-44

“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

C.S. Lewis once said, “God likes matter; he invented it.” And once you open up the Bible, it doesn’t take you long to discover exactly how true that is. God is a God of means. God gave Adam and Eve every tree of the garden to eat, except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Even in their sin, guilt, and shame, God used something else of his creation—the skin of a sacrificed animal—to clothe them. God sent the animals two by two to Noah, who built an ark. God fed manna and quail to Israel in the wilderness. God gave atonement and forgiveness through the flesh and blood and sacrifices of the tabernacle and temple. God is a God of means who loves to use the matter he created to bless and serve his creatures with his good Gifts.

Solomon knows that God is a God of means. Although God is heavenly, high, and holy, he also loves his creation, comes down to his creatures, and uses the stuff of his creation to bless his people in body and soul. Food. Drink. Rest. These simple, ordinary, daily things are gifts from God’s hand. This is what we pray for in the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: give us this day our daily bread. So, when you eat breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, or dinner, this is from the hand of God. When you put on your socks or sport mode your Crocs, this is from the hand of God. 

But that’s not all that comes from God’s hand. God is a God of means at his table as well. God takes his extraordinary grace and mercy and gives it to us in the ordinariness of water, human speech, a piece of bread, and a cup of wine. God still likes matter, and he uses it to bring you the Gifts that matter the most: forgiveness, grace, mercy, peace, and joy. The water poured over your head at Baptism was from the hand of God. The words of Good News given to you in Scripture and Absolution are from the hand of God. The bread and cup placed in your hand, Jesus declares is his Body and Blood for you; this, too, is from the hand of God. After all of that, what else is there to do but to eat, drink, and rejoice in the labors of Christ for you.

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

In what You give us, Lord, to do, Together or alone, In old routines or ventures new, May we not cease to look to You, The cross You hung upon– All you endeavored done. (LSB 853:4)

Rev. Samuel Schuldheisz, pastor of Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Milton, WA.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

Step back in time to the late Reformation and learn about a divisive yet inspirational figure: Matthias Flacius Illyricus. His contributions to Lutheranism still echo in our teachings today, from the Magdeburg Confession to parts of the Lutheran Confessions. Learning about Flacius’s life will help you understand more intricacies of the Reformation than ever before.