Our Daily Bread Podcast | Our Daily Bread Our Daily Bread Ministries

At the after-school Bible club where my wife Sue serves once a week, the kids were asked to donate money to help children in the war-torn country of Ukraine. About a week after Sue told our eleven-year-old granddaughter Maggie about the project, we got an envelope in the mail from her. It contained $3.45, along with a note: “This is all I have for the kids in Ukraine. I’ll send more later.”

Sue hadn’t suggested to Maggie that she should help, but perhaps the Spirit prompted her. And Maggie, who loves Jesus and seeks to live for Him, responded.

We can learn a lot as we think of this small gift from a big heart. It mirrors some instructions about giving provided by Paul in 2 Corinthians 9. First, the apostle suggested that we should sow “generously” (v. 6). A gift of “all I have” is certainly a generous one. Paul also wrote that our gifts should be given cheerfully as God leads and as we’re able, not because we’re “under compulsion” (v. 7). And he mentioned the value of “gifts to the poor” (v. 9) by quoting Psalm 112:9.

When an opportunity to give presents itself, let’s ask how God wants us to respond. When we’re generous and cheerful in directing our gifts to those in need as He leads us, we give in a way that reflects “thanksgiving to God” (2 Corinthians 9:11). That’s big-hearted giving.

The men in the Bible study group were nearly eighty years old, so I was surprised to learn they struggled with lust. A battle that had begun in their youth lingered still. Each day they pledged to follow Jesus in this area and asked forgiveness for the moments they failed.

It may surprise us that godly men still fight against base temptations at a late stage in life, but maybe it shouldn’t. An idol is anything that threatens to take the place of God in our lives, and such things can show up long after we assume they’re gone.

In the Bible, Jacob had been rescued from his uncle Laban and his brother Esau. He was returning to Bethel to worship God and celebrate His many blessings, yet his family still kept foreign gods that Jacob had to bury (Genesis 35:2–4). At the end of the book of Joshua, after Israel had defeated their enemies and settled in Canaan, Joshua still had to urge them to “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord” (Joshua 24:23). And King David’s wife Michal apparently kept idols, for she put one in his bed to deceive the soldiers who came to kill him (1 Samuel 19:11–16).

Idols are more common than we think, and God is more patient than we deserve. Temptations to turn to them will come, but God’s forgiveness is greater. May we be set apart for Jesus—turning from our sins and finding forgiveness in Him.

When Keri’s young son was going through yet another muscular dystrophy-related surgery, she wanted to get her mind off her family’s situation by doing something for someone else. So she rounded up her son’s outgrown but gently used shoes and donated them to a ministry. Her giving prompted friends and family members and even neighbors to join in, and soon more than two hundred shoes were donated!

Although the shoe drive was meant to bless others, Keri feels her family was blessed more. “The whole experience really lifted our spirits and helped us to focus outward.”

Paul understood how important it was for followers of Jesus to give generously. On his way to Jerusalem, the apostle Paul stopped in Ephesus. He knew it would likely be his last visit with the people of the church he’d founded there. In his farewell address to the church elders, he encouraged and reminded them to continue to work diligently in service to God as he had while with them (Acts 20:17–20). Then he concluded with Jesus’ words: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (v. 35).

Jesus wants us to freely and humbly give of ourselves (Matthew 10:8; Luke 6:38). When we trust Him to guide us, He will provide opportunities for us to do so. Like Keri’s family, we may be surprised by the joy we experience as a result.

My friend hurried from her stressful job at the hospital, wondering what she would prepare for dinner before her husband returned from his equally demanding job. She had made chicken on Sunday and served leftovers on Monday. Then, they had yet another round of chicken—this time baked—on Tuesday. She found two pieces of fish in the freezer, but she knew the fillets weren’t her husband’s favorite. Not finding anything else she could prepare in just a few minutes, she decided the fish would have to do.

As she placed the dish on the table, she said somewhat apologetically to her husband who had just arrived home: “I know this isn’t your favorite.” Her husband looked up and said, “Honey, I’m just happy we have food on the table.”

His attitude reminds me of the importance of being grateful and thankful for our daily provisions from God—whatever they are. Giving thanks for our daily bread, or meals, models Jesus’ example. When He ate with two disciples after His resurrection, Christ “took bread, gave thanks, [and] broke it” (Luke 24:30). He thanked His Father as He had earlier when he had fed the five thousand with five “loaves and two small fish” (John 6:11).

When we give thanks for our daily meals and for other provisions, our gratitude reflects Jesus’ ways and honors our heavenly Father. Let’s give thanks to God today.

It feels like “likes”—you know, that little thumbs-up on Facebook—have always been with us. But it turns out that this virtual symbol of affirmation has only been around since 2009.    

The “like” designer, Justin Rosenstein, said he wanted to help create “a world in which people uplift each other rather than tear each other down.” But Rosenstein came to lament how his invention might have enabled users’ unhealthy addiction to social media.  

I think Rosenstein’s creation speaks to our hard-wired need for affirmation and connection. We want to know that others know us, notice us—and, yes, like us. The “like” is fairly new. But our hunger to know and be known is as old as creation.

Still, the like button doesn’t quite get the job done, does it? Thankfully, we serve a God whose love goes so much deeper than a digital nod. In Jeremiah 1:5, we witness His profoundly purposeful connection with a prophet whom He called to Himself. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”

God knew the prophet even before conception and designed him for a life of meaning and mission (vv. 8-10). And He invites us too into a purposeful life as we come to know this Father who so intimately knows, loves, and likes us.

Two friends and I were checking off a bucket list item—hiking the Grand Canyon. We wondered if we had enough water as we started out our hike, and it ran out fast. We were completely out of water with still a ways to go to reach the rim. Panting, mixed with praying, set in. Then we rounded a corner and what we maintain as a miracle happened. We spotted three water bottles tucked in a cleft in the rock with a note: “Knew you’d need this. Enjoy!” We looked at each other in disbelief, whispered a “thank You” to God, took a couple of much-needed sips, and then set out on the last stretch. I’ve never been so thirsty—and thankful—in my life.

The psalmist didn’t have a Grand Canyon experience, but it’s clear he knew how a deer acts when thirsty and possibly scared. “The deer pants” (Psalm 42:1), a word that brings to mind hunger and thirst, to the point where if something doesn’t change, you’re afraid you might die. The psalmist equates the deer’s degree of thirst to his desire for God: “So my soul pants for you, my God” (v. 1).

Like much-needed water, God is our ever-present help. We pant for Him because He brings renewed strength and refreshment to our weary lives, equipping us for whatever the day’s journey holds.