Bread

So what possesses someone like me on a day like today to feel the need to bake bread?  Isaac always asks me "why are you making bread today?" usually it is on a day when we are leaving for a trip or preparing to have people come and stay or some other stressful day in our lives.
As in...
are you crazy?  Don't you have enough to think about and do?  Why are you making bread and adding another "thing" to your day?  And from the outside I would have to agree with him.

But, there is some bizarre comfort for me in baking bread.  There is a comfort in grinding the wheat, gathering the whole grains, mixing, kneeding and watching it rise--then baking it and filling the house with a warm yummy aroma.

It evokes something that I cannot quite put a finger on.

So today I was thinking about it as I was forming the loaves.

I was asking myself what it is about bread?  and I thought about this posting I made back in April when I made bread with Lucas for the first time:

http://breadandotherprovisions.blogspot.com/2011/04/bread-baking-with-boopski.html

there is the
joy
labor of love
aroma
and finally the
taste
God repeatedly uses bread to show that He has provided for his people.  Even symbolically it is a staple to existence.   He has provided The Bread.



Nehemiah 9:15
In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them

Isaiah 55:1-3

New International Version (NIV)

 ¹ “Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost.
² Why spend money on what is not bread, 
   and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
   and you will delight in the richest of fare.
³ Give ear and come to me;
   listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
   my faithful love promised to David.

Ezekiel 4:9
“Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself...

Matthew 6:11

New International Version (NIV)

¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.

Matthew 26:26
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

John 6:32

New International Version (NIV)

 ³² Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

John 6:35
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.


John 6:48
I am the bread of life.


There is something inately good and comforting in "bread".  It has sustained us throughout generations, and when I make it, I really do think about God's Provision.  
Today,
I think about how God has gone before us once again.  He provided the Bread of Life---That is what sustains me today.  As the aroma fills my house, I will recall God's provision.
There's something relaxing and calming about the aroma of bread...a very good thing for today. 
  


2 Corinthians 2:14 - 15"But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.  For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing."