The Soggy Bread Principle

Read: Ecclesiastes 11

Cast your bread upon the water, for you will find it after many days. (Eccl. 11:1 NKJV)

This first verse of Chapter 11 of the Book of Ecclesiastes has always rather intrigued me. I remember first encountering this verse as a young teenager, and thinking, “What good is soggy bread??!!”

The intervening years, in which I've worked to build a career as a writer/playwright have, I believe, taught me more about the actual meaning and significance of this verse. When I first set out to write something as short as an article for an academic journal, or as  long as a 90-minute play, I usually have no idea whether or not a journal will actually accept the article for publication, or if my new play will find its way to production. I must first invest the time and effort of writing, and then submitting, a piece in order to even have a hope of seeing that work in print or on the stage. I lightheartedly refer to this as the “Soggy Bread Principle,” acknowledging that those of us who have swallowing difficulties find it much easier to eat bread when it’s soggy than when it’s dry!

For those of us who have acknowledged and accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, there is another dimension to the Soggy Bread Principle: Jesus invites us to entrust Him with the ultimate results of our efforts, trusting that He alone knows how and when to bring the bread we have cast out upon the water back to us in just the right way, in just the right time, and with just the right level of sogginess to make it of the most benefit to us and to others.

Gracious and faithful Lord Jesus, Thank you for the abilities and opportunities that you give me to figuratively cast bread upon the water. Please help me not to squander these opportunities, but rather to diligently make the most out of them, trusting You to bring the best results for my good and Your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Finding the Will to Wait

Read: Lamentations 3:25-58

It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. (Lamentations 3:26)

I spend a lot of my time waiting–mostly for DATS (Paratransit) busses. It’s accurate to say that on any given day when I’m not working from home all day, I can spend anywhere from 30 minutes to two-and-a-half hours waiting to get from Point A to Point B. Upon learning this fact, people often make remarks about how patient I am. I usually respond by saying something to the effect that it’s not so much that I’m patient, it’s that I realize that, if I got really uptight and upset every time the bus was late, or every time I had to take a wonky, time-consuming detour in order to pick up or drop off someone else en route to my destination, I would probably have had a stroke or a heart attack a long time ago.

I usually don’t have too much difficulty waiting for DATS, or waiting for other things/people, when I know that there is some kind of set time-frame in which I’ll have to wait–however prolonged that time-frame ends up being. But I have a much harder time waiting in times of major change and/or uncertainty in my life, times when I have absolutely no idea how long I’ll be waiting, or sometimes even what, exactly, I’m waiting for! It’s during these times that I often get very anxious and agitated, as I wonder what’s taking God so long to intervene and put an end to my time of waiting.

The Book of Lamentations was written during a time when the people of Israel were waiting, with great anxiousness, to be delivered from the Babylonians, who had captured and destroyed Jerusalem. Recognizing that the Babylonian invasion was God’s punishment on the people of Israel for their unfaithfulness, the prophet-writer of Lamentations (probably Jeremiah) encourages his people: “It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

Gracious Lord, In times of adversity or uncertainty when I find myself unable to move forward, please help me not to be overwhelmed by anxiety or self-pity. Help me instead to wait quietly for you to reveal yourself in and through my circumstances. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Visual Impairments: The Importance of What We Can’t See

Read: 2 Corinthians 4:14-18

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

One of the challenges that I seem to face on an ongoing basis when it comes to my life as a Christ-follower is a vision impairment: spiritual short-sightedness. I tend to become so engrossed in, or overwhelmed by, my present circumstances that I lose my perspective. As I age, I seem to be accumulating more and more “secondary conditions” related to my primary condition, Cerebral Palsy. For example, shortly after I turned 30, I was diagnosed with a swallowing disorder, and had to start eating only pureed food. (Pureed turkey at Thanksgiving – YUM!...NOT!!!) Some twelve years after that, I had my first bout of aspiration pneumonia, which was nearly fatal, and had to have feeding-tube inserted into my stomach. Although, thankfully, I have subsequently regained the ability to eat some pureed foods by mouth, odds are high that, as I age, my swallowing muscles will weaken further, resulting in an increased risk of recurrent pneumonia and eventual death, even with the feeding-tube.

More often than not, this spiritual visual impairment of mine causes me to magnify my present challenges and troubles rather than viewing them as “light and momentary”! Yet, in today’s Scripture reading, this is exactly how the Apostle Paul views the life-threatening hardships which he repeatedly faces in the course of his ministry. What enabled Paul to view such hardships in this way? Paul purposely views his present hardships from an eternal perspective, recognizing that God is using his troubles in often indiscernible ways to perfect and prepare him for the glory that awaits him in heaven.

All-knowing Heavenly Father, I confess that there are many times when I become so overwhelmed by the limitations, challenges, and troubles I face here and now that I lose sight of Your ultimate claim and watch-care over my life. During those times, God, please correct my vision so that I am able to look beyond my immediate circumstances, and recognize that the troubles I face in this life are indeed “light and momentary” compared to the Glorious eternity with You in Heaven. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.