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Psalm 127:2 names a bread most of us are eating and have never identified.

"It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows."

Bread of sorrows. Not bread that causes sorrow. Bread made of it. Bread whose ingredient is anxiety, whose oven is the arm of flesh, whose baker is the man who believes that if he does not provide for himself, nobody will.

𝗜𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗴𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘀𝗵.

"Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm… he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh." Jeremiah 17:5-6. That is the diet of the self-made. He gets the bread. He never gets the satisfaction. He is eating in a desert and cannot see good even when it arrives.

Because here is the law of that bread: 𝗶𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗳𝗶𝗲𝘀. "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?" Isaiah 55:2. You can earn it, hoard it, multiply it, and the hunger comes back by morning. Nothing in this world was built to fill a man. It was built to point him somewhere.

𝗘𝘀𝗮𝘂 𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝘁.

He came in from the field exhausted and said, "feed me… for I am faint." Genesis 25:30. One bowl of lentils for a birthright. He got the bread. Scripture's verdict: "he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright." He was full for an hour and robbed for eternity. And later, "he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." Hebrews 12:17. Bread of sorrow. Eaten quickly. Wept over for life.

𝗚𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘇𝗶 𝗿𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘁.

Naaman, healed of leprosy, offered Elisha silver and garments. Elisha refused. The prophet would not let a Syrian general think the grace of God had a price. But his servant Gehazi watched the gift walk away and could not bear it. He ran after the chariot, lied, and collected two talents of silver and two changes of raiment. 2 Kings 5:20-27

He got the bread. He also got the leprosy. "The leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever." The thing the master refused became the servant's inheritance, with the disease attached. That is what the arm of flesh always delivers: the gift, and the curse under it.

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱.

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Deuteronomy 8:3. Jesus quoted it to the devil while starving. Not "bread is bad." Bread alone. A man who depends totally on bread will die a man of sorrow, because bread was never designed to carry the weight of a soul.

Then He said the thing that ended the argument forever. "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." John 6:51

Living bread. The bread of sorrow is dead the moment it is baked; it decays, it is spent, it is gone by tomorrow. His body is living. It feeds and keeps feeding. Israel ate manna in the wilderness and died. "This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." John 6:50

𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗰𝗵.

Israel Houghton sang it in "Your Presence Is Heaven": the whole song is one confession, that His presence is the thing, that nothing else on earth was ever going to be enough. That is not a lyric. It is Psalm 16:11 in a melody. "In thy presence is fulness of joy." Fulness. The one word the bread of sorrow can never deliver.

So the audit is short.

What bread are you rising early to bake?
 Is the thing you're exhausted for something He already promised to give His beloved in their sleep?
 Have you, like Esau, traded something eternal for something warm?
 Are you, like Gehazi, running after a gift your Master already refused?

"He giveth his beloved sleep." Psalm 127:2. The beloved do not bake at midnight. They are fed.

Put down the bread of sorrow.

Come and eat.

#Faith #BreadOfLife #Presence #Rest

There is a verse I avoided for years because it indicted me.

"It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep." Psalm 127:2

Vain. Rising early, sitting late, eating anxiety for dinner. The psalmist calls it vanity. Not diligence. Not sacrifice. Vanity.

Because the man who cannot sleep is confessing something with his body. He believes the world depends on him. He believes if he stops, it stops. He has quietly taken a job that was never offered to him: holding the universe together overnight.

𝗦𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁.

"He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." Psalm 121:4. He doesn't sleep so you can. Every night you close your eyes, you hand the watch back to the One it belongs to. Refuse to sleep, and you are refusing to hand it back.

Jesus slept in a boat in a storm. Mark 4:38. The waves were real. The disciples were terrified. The Son of God was on a cushion. He was not careless. He was trusting. Sleep in a storm is the highest form of faith the body can express.

𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁.

In our world, sleep is the first thing sacrificed and the last thing confessed. Five hours is a badge. "I'll sleep when I ship." We treat the night as a resource to mine. And then we wonder why the mind is foggy, the temper short, the prayer dry, the body sick by forty.

God built the night into the day. "The evening and the morning were the first day." Genesis 1:5. In His calendar the day starts with rest. You begin by stopping. Work flows out of rest, not the other way round.

𝗦𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁.

What are you saying to God when you refuse to sleep?

If the answer is "I don't trust You with this," then the fix is not a better mattress. It is repentance.

Go to bed. On time. As an act of worship. Hand the watch back.

"I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8

The beloved sleep. It is a gift. Stop refusing it.

#TheWholeMan #Faith #Rest #Health

Paul, who wrote half the New Testament, said something most of us would never say about ourselves.
"I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." 1 Corinthians 9:27
Keep under. The Greek is a boxing word, to strike beneath the eye. Paul disciplined his body like an athlete in training, and his reason was not fitness. It was finishing. He was afraid of preaching to others and being disqualified himself.
The body is not neutral. It has appetites, and appetites vote. Hunger, sleep, comfort, pleasure, ease. Left ungoverned they do not stay in their lane. They become the lane. "Whose God is their belly." Philippians 3:19
𝗔 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻.
That is why fasting exists. Not to earn anything. To remind the body who is in charge. A man who cannot say no to a meal will struggle to say no to anything.
History agrees. John Wesley rode roughly a quarter of a million miles on horseback and preached into his late eighties, and he was precise about his sleep, his food and his hours, because he knew the body was the horse that carried the message. Daniel's diet in Babylon was discipline before it was devotion.
Now the balance. This is not vanity and it is not punishment. Paul also said "bodily exercise profiteth little" compared to godliness. 1 Timothy 4:8. Little, not nothing. The body is the servant, not the master, and also not the enemy. You govern it the way a good king governs a province: firmly, kindly, for the sake of the whole kingdom.
𝗦𝗼, 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆.
Move it. Walk, lift, run, something, most days. A sedentary body dulls a praying mind.
Feed it like it belongs to Someone else. Because it does.
Fast sometimes. Let the body hear "no" from you before it hears it from a doctor.
Rest it. We covered sleep. It still applies.
The goal is not a body you can show. It is a body that will carry you to the finish line without becoming the reason you fall off before it.
Bring it under. Then run.(I am guilty of a few and my heart is pricked just like yours might be) 
#TheWholeMan #Faith #Discipline #Health