In a collection of essays for preachers, Best Advice, one essay counsels that preachers should rejoice when they hear that parishioners are spiritually hungry. Instead of worrying about their hunger, preachers should to use the opportunity to remind people that God made us that way. God “hard wired us” to be spiritually hungry. God made us to be in relationship with God. Also, preachers should remind their parishioners that no amount of entertainment, leisure, money, stuff, sex, drugs or alcohol can ever satisfy that hunger. Only God can do that. “For God alone, my soul in silence waits.” Psalm 62.
Perhaps that’s one reason that Jesus taught his disciples that they should pray for daily bread. Just as we need food for our stomachs each day, so also Jesus knows that our souls need to be fed daily with spiritual food. Each day we are to pray the LORD’s prayer, along with other prayers, and to ask the LORD for the bread needed for that day–spiritual and material bread.
There will a lot going on at St. Mark’s this fall, several new classes, Shrimp Boil, a capital campaign, ChristCare training, a ministry fair, outreach projects, and more. Many have been affected in varying degrees by the economy. In the midst of so much, let us not forget to ask Christ each day for the daily bread needed for that day and learn more and more to trust in Him for the rest. He fed his disciples; He will surely feed us.
Danny
