{"id":5353,"date":"2026-04-09T08:26:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5353"},"modified":"2026-04-09T08:26:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T12:26:49","slug":"our-daily-bread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/09\/our-daily-bread\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Daily Bread"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,<\/em>\u00a0click here<\/a>
\u00a0
\u201cHow are you doing?\u201d<\/em>
\u201cJust fine, thank you.\u201d<\/em>
\u00a0
That script, which most of us have followed more times than we can count, might constitute the world\u2019s shortest conversation.
\u00a0
But it hardly qualifies as a meeting of minds and hearts. And in this context, \u201cfine\u201d almost never means everything is fine.
\u00a0
\u201cFine\u201d often serves as a one-word stand-in for sentiments like these:
\u00a0
I don\u2019t really have time to do more than say hello to you right now.<\/em>
I don\u2019t actually think you\u2019re interested in the details of my life, so I\u2019ll play along and not reveal anything.<\/em>
I don\u2019t believe my life is interesting or important enough to give you more than a superficial response.<\/em>
I don\u2019t want to risk our relationship by telling you how I really feel.<\/em>
\u00a0
Fine<\/em> is a conversational cover-up, a socially acceptable lie, concerning things I have no intention of revealing in the context of a brief greeting.\u00a0
\u00a0
How am I?\u00a0As the old saying goes, I\u2019m just F-I-N-E<\/strong>, thank you:\u00a0F<\/strong>reaked Out, I<\/strong>nsecure, N<\/strong>eurotic, and E<\/strong>motional.\u00a0
\u00a0
That\u2019s what many of us might say if we were actually doing a deep dive toward the bottom of our souls and then felt called to share our discoveries.
\u00a0
Just turning on the news means being hit with wave after wave of \u201cbreaking news\u201d announcements \u2013 which, as one commentator put it, turn out to be stories that threaten to break<\/em> us. To confuse us. To discourage us. To make us wonder what we can possibly hang on to in a less-than-fine world.
\u00a0
Melissa Kirsch of The New York Times<\/em> writes a column called \u201cThe Good List.\u201d
\u00a0
She describes it as \u201ca weekly inventory of ideas, rituals and cultural artifacts to add joy to your days.\u201d
\u00a0
A few days ago, she shared a letter from Sarah Morford of Fort Worth, Texas:
\u00a0
\u201cLast year, my 8-year-old son was diagnosed with acute leukemia. My friends decided that asking me, \u2018How are you?\u2019 was just straight-up banned. My friend Tricia replaced it with, \u2018What\u2019s good today?\u2019 It stuck. To this day, one year later, we still say, \u2018What\u2019s good today?\u2019
\u00a0
\u201cIt\u2019s how I frame my conversations with my friends, how I share my day on social media, and has shaped my thinking. Even on my darkest, lowest days, I could find something good. Sometimes, that was three minutes of sunshine on my shoulders, or a hot coffee, or a hug, or a preferred nurse, or that he was still here; sometimes, it was way better.\u201d
\u00a0
Identifying and gratefully receiving what is good today<\/em> has deep roots in Scripture.
\u00a0
When the Israelites walked away from centuries of slavery in Egypt, they were immediately overwhelmed by the reality of empty stomachs. Who would feed them? Where could they possibly find food in the middle of the Sinai wilderness?
\u00a0
In Exodus chapter 16, God provides. Every morning, thin flakes of a bread-like substance carpet the ground.\u00a0
\u00a0
The Israelites never actually\u00a0come up with a name for this free meal.\u00a0In the Hebrew language the words \u201cWhat is it?\u201d are ma nah.\u00a0<\/em>Thus the word \u201cmanna\u201d literally means, \u201cwhattyacallit.\u201d\u00a0

For the next 40 years, throughout their wilderness wanderings, they will gather whattyacallit<\/em> for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.\u00a0
\u00a0
More than a thousand years later, Jesus would\u00a0remind his followers about this miraculous gift of bread.\u00a0When the disciples say, \u201cLord, teach us to pray,\u201d he instructs\u00a0them to ask, \u201cGive us today our daily bread.\u201d
\u00a0
The word \u201cdaily\u201d in Greek is epiousion<\/em>.\u00a0For centuries, no\u00a0one really knew what the word meant.\u00a0Then archeologists found it on broken shards of pottery that ancient housewives appear to have been using as grocery lists.\u00a0It turns out that epiousion<\/em> means\u00a0\u201cwhat I need for this day only.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
In other words, Jesus was telling his disciples (and us), \u201cTrust God to provide exactly what you will need over the next 24 hours.\u201d\u00a0

No more.\u00a0No less.\u00a0
\u00a0
At the end of each day, look back.\u00a0Where did you find manna?\u00a0
\u00a0
Even if everything isn\u2019t fine \u2013 and it almost never is \u2013 what was good today?
\u00a0
Where did God provide the one thing, large or small, that you needed at just the right moment?
\u00a0
No matter what news breaks upon us today, we don\u2019t have to end up spiritually famished.

We can be nourished on the daily bread of discerning something good \u2013 and thanking God from the bottom of our hearts.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0\u201cHow are you doing?\u201d\u201cJust fine, thank you.\u201d\u00a0That script, which most of us have followed more times than we can count, might constitute the world\u2019s shortest conversation.\u00a0But it hardly qualifies as a meeting of minds and hearts. And in this context, \u201cfine\u201d almost never means everything is fine.\u00a0\u201cFine\u201d often serves as a one-word… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1097,1098,87],"class_list":["post-5353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bread","tag-fine","tag-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5355,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5353\/revisions\/5355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}