Recently my wife and I were vacationing with my son’s family at a cabin on the beautiful Rogue River in Oregon. My 9-year-old granddaughter, Daniella, wanted to show me the trail down to the river that she had discovered. The winding trail was thick with blackberry bushes so we had a delicious blackberry treat. Daniella remarked to me, “Umm, those berries make me feel fresh!” It was a striking childlike perspective that she brought to the moment.
In pondering her comment, I realized eating fruit is a refreshing experience. The Lord created fruit this way to reveal to us a spiritual reality. As we encounter the fruit of His life and Word—both in our own walk and also in sweet fellowship with others—it releases an immediate freshness in our soul.
I often hear the heart’s cry of leaders, ministers and coaches who are eager to stay fresh and not lose the passion and fun of leading, coaching and ministry. How can we stay fresh? If we ever get “stale” in our walk with the Lord, after having tasted “fresh” then we begin to hunger to return to that precious freshness. When we are short on freshness, He absolutely is not. The simplest of solutions can easily be missed, which is to turn to Him for refreshing and hear His voice. The very act of turning is the fruit that, as we taste it, makes us begin to feel fresh again. It is an absolutely marvelous feeling to “feel fresh” in the Lord.
When the Lord taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” He was prophetically declaring over us it is our portion to have daily fresh bread. He was not directing us to pray for our daily stale bread. He knows what we need and He has designed freshness to be our daily portion by His design and calling.
The manna the children of Israel gathered daily in their wilderness journey was symbolic of the “bread of God”, the Lord himself. He is our daily bread.
“Today if you will hear his voice…” Psalm 95:7b
“And the manna was as coriander seed, … And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills… and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.” Numbers 11:7-8
Of all the flavors possible, the Lord determined manna would taste like fresh oil to symbolically show us freshness is daily hearing Him. Partaking of the daily hidden manna brings us a limitless supply of freshness.
Recently, I traveled to Germany to minister. My hosts went down the street each morning before breakfast to the bakery and got fresh baked bread for breakfast. Wow! Fresh baked bread with butter and strawberry jam! It was so good. Hot fresh bread is almost like a different food group. I can taste its goodness even now! And on the lips of the Lord is the fresh bread of heaven that we need.
His bakery is open 24/7/365. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good! As we partake of His fresh word and the fruit of our hearts turning toward Him, we can receive the instant joyful reward of feeling fresh with Him. Let us incline our ears to hear what He will speak and let the freshness of His Word be our life.
– Martin Flack