Today Daily Devotional

“I had a dream. . . . A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”

— Judges 7:13

Have you ever had a significant dream that you couldn’t understand?

At different times throughout the history recorded in the Bible, God spoke to people through dreams, and it often took another person to interpret the meaning of a dream. Sometimes still today people find that God speaks through dreams, and sharing them with others can help them discern what God is saying.

In our story for today, God tells Gideon to go to the enemy camp at night, and he hears an enemy soldier describing a dream he has had. In the dream, a loaf of barley tumbles into the Midianite camp and collapses the tent of the Midianites. Another soldier interprets the dream, saying that this means the God of Israel will bring destruction on the Midianites through Gideon. And Gideon, encouraged by this dream, goes back to his camp and musters his army to trust in God’s power—and God overcomes the enemy for them.

God demonstrates that he can work by any means, and often he uses what may seem to be a weak or unlikely option to show how powerful he is.

Do you believe that God can reveal his plans in unlikely ways, and that God can use what seems weak to us to reveal his power in our lives?

Lord our God, lead us to trust that you can use whatever ways you choose to reveal your power and goodness in our lives and in this world. Amen.

When Naomi heard . . . that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home.

— Ruth 1:6

Ruth and Naomi’s story begins with sadness and hunger, and it ends with fulfillment and joy.

After Naomi’s husband and her sons died, she heard that God was again providing food (literally lehem, which means bread) in Bethlehem, which means “house of bread” (see Ruth 1).

When Ruth and Naomi returned to Bethlehem, God provided for them at every stage of the bread-making process—in the field as Ruth picked up leftover grain; at mealtime during the workday when the harvesters ate roasted barley; and at the end of the season at the threshing floor.

In this story, all kinds of references to the abundance of grain and bread show fulfillment by the Lord’s hand. Ruth was permitted to glean with the crew and to bring home a basket brimming with grain. At mealtime, Ruth ate until she was satisfied, and she even had some left over. Ruth also harvested grain throughout the season, after which she approached Boaz to help her (Ruth 3). And many of the signs of fulfillment are not only in Boaz’s words but also in his gestures of kindness and provision.

Many years later, Jesus, a descendent of Ruth and Boaz, was born in Bethlehem. And he became the bread of life, the greatest fulfillment of all time.

God our Father, your ways surprise and delight. Thank you for our daily bread. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

“The jar of flour will not be used up . . . until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.”

— 1 Kings 17:14

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a sudden demand for flour and yeast. Many, many people wanted to make bread at home! This surge caused a shortage of supplies, leaving shelves bare at the grocery store and causing some people to go without the basics they needed.

Today’s story in 1 Kings highlights significant shortages: the stream runs dry, and the flour and oil are about to run out. Scarcity is everywhere, and Elijah and the widow and her son seem to be living on the edge of survival.

Imagine how the widow must have felt when Elijah asked her to make him a small loaf of bread with her limited re­sources. Largely because of a custom to be hospitable to strangers, she did it, not wanting to bring shame on her household. It couldn’t have been easy, but she made a small loaf of bread and served it to Elijah. And, miraculously, God replenished her flour and oil so that they did not run out until the end of the drought.

The fact that this takes place in Sidon, a land outside of Israel, shows that the Lord God, who makes all things abundant even in times of scarcity, is stronger, better, and more powerful than the gods of other nations. In fact, God is the only true God, the Lord of heaven and earth.

Lord our God, you are our provider. At times we are scared about running out of things, and yet we see that your power is greater than our fears. We trust in you. Amen.

“You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.”

— 1 Kings 17:4

In the Bible there are many stories about God’s people disobeying God’s instructions to do certain things—and all of those things were designed to help the people learn to trust in God. God loves and cares for his people, and he always wants what is best for us. But we often like to do things our own way—so instead we disobey God, and that leads to trouble and eventually to ruin, unless God rescues us.

In 1 Kings 17, Elijah demonstrated complete trust in God, even when it didn’t seem to make sense. God told Elijah to go to a place that was unfamiliar to him, and Elijah trusted that God would provide for him there—even though it wouldn’t have seemed possible in the midst of a drought. But, amazingly, Elijah was able to drink from a fresh stream, and he ate bread and meat brought to him each day by ravens—birds that the Israelites were taught to view as unclean and off limits! As strange as it was, Elijah received the gift of bread and good care by trusting that God would sustain him.

Can you trust that God will provide for you even in ways that may seem surprising?

Can you recognize God’s call in your life, prompting you to do right instead of wrong, to obey his Word and follow his way instead of going your own way?

Lord, guide our hearts to trust that you will provide for us in ways that we would not even imagine. Amen.

“The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

— Matthew 4:3

Are you ever tempted to take advantage of a situation for your own benefit?

While Jesus was being tempted, he quoted from the Scriptures to show that we do not “live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (see Deuteronomy 8:3).

No matter which way people fell short in their lives, Jesus showed the perfect way. For example, even after the Israelites were well fed and satisfied, they became proud and forgot that it was God who had fed them. But Jesus—even when he was tempted to make bread out of stones—showed restraint and humility, and he explained that God’s Word is the ultimate food.

Moses had urged God’s people to remember how God rescued them from many precarious situations, and yet they soon forgot about God’s saving acts. But Jesus did not forget those lessons, and he refused to put God to the test. Why should he dishonor God by acting as if God should prove himself again and again?

Moses also warned the people not to think too highly of their wealth and power or to serve other gods, but they failed at that too. Jesus, however, would worship and serve no one but the one true God.

Jesus showed us how to obey and honor God. When we live by “every word that comes from the mouth of God,” we are more able to resist temptations.

Lord Jesus, you are perfect in all of your ways. Like you, may we trust God to guide us, rescue us, and provide for all of our needs. Amen.

“Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God. . . .”

— Deuteronomy 8:11

Moses was instructing the peo­ple on how to live. He mentioned bread, eating, being satisfied, and being fed. Clearly the theme of bread and eating was important for understanding God’s saving work in the people’s lives.

We need tangible experiences of grace, and God often reveals his goodness and abundant love through visible signs of flourishing: a land where his people would eat bread without scarcity (Deuteronomy 8:9) and where they would lack nothing. There would be water, olive oil, fruit, and much more in abundance.

But it can be surprisingly easy to overlook God’s generosity—and even to forget the tough times we have survived by God’s grace. Moses reminded the people that the hard times they went through were there to test them, shape them, and ultimately do them good. It’s also easy to congratulate ourselves when things start going well. Moses didn’t say that the people didn’t participate in their own flourishing, but he did remind them that God was the one who gave them the power to do well in the first place. And Moses warned his listeners: If you start living as if you did all these good things for yourself, you’ll forget the source of every good thing, and then you’ll see for sure that you don’t live on bread alone.

We all need God, so let’s remember him in everything—when things are hard and when things are going well.

Blessed be your name, O Lord. Help us to remember that we need you in all situations. Amen.

“He humbled you . . . to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

— Deuteronomy 8:3

During pregnancy, I often experienced quick shifts from feeling indifferent about food to feeling ravenously hungry. The child growing inside me and all of the changes taking place caused me to hunger.

In our Bible reading for today, though, it was God who caused the people to hunger. He brought them into a situation where they didn’t have enough to eat and they needed to depend on him. Only when his people were really hungry could they appreciate that God provided for them.

Sometimes God may allow us to experience a lack of something in order to humble and teach us to grow in faith too. Could it be that when there’s a profound need and a deep hunger, we need to realize that God is not abandoning us but preparing us for something greater, as when a woman is carrying a child?

It’s hard to be in a place of neediness, especially if there’s pain and discomfort involved. And it’s tempting to conclude that whatever isn’t going well should be fixed as soon as possible. But sometimes God leads us into situations to teach us to be utterly dependent on him—to show us that we don’t live on bread alone. God teaches us in order to show us that there’s more to our survival than merely having what we need. We need “every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

God our Father, Help us to hunger for you, and feed us with your holy Word. Amen.

“The Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you.”

— Exodus 16:4

Our boys sometimes sing a funny song called “It’s raining tacos.” It suggests that you should just open your mouth, close your eyes—no need to ask why—and enjoy “all you can eat” tacos from out of the sky. It makes us laugh to think about such an impossible situation, and yet God said something similar to Moses—that he would “rain down bread from heaven” for his people.

Imagine the confusion, joy, and relief when people saw that there was food—and yet how disorienting it must have been to receive food in a way that was completely different from anything they had experienced before.

Think about why God made manna appear in such an unfamiliar way to the Israelites. Could it be that God was inviting the people to accept something from him in a way that required them to trust and to look at reality in a whole new way?

God was clearly doing something new among them, and it was their task to receive it—so that they would not only survive but also know that it was from the Lord when they had all the bread they wanted (Exodus 16:8). Later on in the ministry of Jesus, God also provides bread so that people will know the Lord and trust that he provides everything we need for life.

Lord, we want to know you too. Help us to recognize the ways you reveal yourself to us, and help us to receive whatever you offer us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

“Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.”

— Genesis 18:6

Part of me has to laugh when I read Abraham’s urgent instructions: “Quick . . . bake some bread.” Baking bread from scratch is not something you can do quickly! It requires careful work and time.

But hospitality required that Abraham and Sarah’s visitors should have bread and choice meat and curds and milk prepared. So, whatever time it took to prepare all that, it was worth the work and the wait to provide a hospitable, generous environment for their guests.

Hospitality was central to the culture of that time, and it demonstrated God’s purpose for relationships. When people break bread together, something important happens. People who eat together develop a deeper understanding of each other.

Sadly, in our North American culture today, we’re often in such a hurry that we don’t take the time to really extend hospitality to each other. Yet the Bible often depicts the kingdom of God as a hospitable, even extravagant feast.

In our lives today, could we learn from our neighbors in other cultures about what it means to be hospitable? Could we make room for each other in a patient, generous way—even using the finest ingredients—so that our gatherings echo a biblical vision of hospitality?

Jesus, you promise to gather us at a great banquet. May that extravagant vision of breaking bread with you inspire us to spread a generous table for others who might even be your messengers (Hebrews 13:2). Amen.

“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground. . . .”

— Genesis 3:19

In the very beginning, God gave to Adam and Eve all the seed-bearing plants for food (Genesis 1:29). But after the fall into sin, God tells them that one of the consequences of their sin is that they will have to work hard for their food. The word translated here as “food” is the Hebrew word lehem, which means “bread.” This means bread is so vital that it basically refers to everything that sustains life. Essentially this refers to all food, not just what we call bread. In the context of these sobering words, bread symbolizes our vulnerability and even our mortality as our bodies go back to the very dust we are made from.

Today people still have to work hard to grow and buy food—or in some cases, to wait in long lines for food.

Notice, however, that the ground is cursed and the ­serpent is cursed but that the people and the food are not cursed. Though we suffer the impacts and consequences of sin, we still experience some measure of blessing: the ground still produces food. And because our mortal bodies will not live forever, the time needed to work hard for food is limited. This is a kind of mercy in disguise. This difficulty also foreshadows the tremendous gift it is that God provides bread, and that in the end God himself is our bread.

Lord, have mercy on us. Life is not easy, and we endure the consequences of sin all around us. Forgive us, we pray, and give us this day our daily bread. Amen.