Stones to bread

Here is the dilemma.  We all need to eat.  The other option isn't pretty, even though it is a way of life for too many in our world.  To go without eating is to live in hunger, searching for food, crying out for a scrap of bread.

We all have to eat.

At the same time, I always eat more than I really need to.

In the book of Numbers, a story is told of the people of Israel wandering around in the desert, fed up with God, and really fed up with all that manna.  Enough already.  So they cry out to God, "We have nothing to eat and we loathe this miserable food."

You can see the contradiction, right?  Either you have no food, or you don't like the food you have, but you can't have it both ways.

But we do this again and again.  We claim to be hungry, but have no interest in the can of beans in the cupboard....or the cream of mushroom soup....or the fish in the freezer....or the steak that is overdone....or the creamed spinach.  (I truly loathe creamed spinach!)

Faced with stones, and having the power to turn them into bread, we would do it.  Again and again.  Of course we can extend the picture even further.  We would turn a simple need for transportation into a BMW.  We would turn the need for clothes to wear to work into an outrageously priced pair of shoes.  If faced with a bit of hunger and stones, we'd be all over it, turning it into some nice artisan loaf.......and a bit of butter too if we could manage it.

I'm including myself in all this....the greed that sits at the center of us, seeking more and better without any real consideration of our neighbor.  We are so much more capable of seeing our needs than hearing our neighbors' cries.

Is this the word that calls out to you this Lent?  Is God calling you to consider needs v. wants v. deprivation?  What can you do to get a handle on this?

40 days.  What will your offering to God be?