Our personal life journeys have their unique twists and turns. Each new day faces us with unique challenges. We have the power to choose how we will respond to them.

When the children of Israel were grumbling about their limited resources and the restricted life-style imposed on them by their deliverance from their Egyptian bondage, God gave them bread from heaven (Exodus 16:4). He also said that He would test them in doing this.

The reaction of the community to this special provision is often characteristic of our response when God brings what we need into our lives: "What IS this?" (Exodus 16:15). For they did not recognize bread from heaven when they saw it.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread." (Matthew 6:11). We must focus on what truly brings us life. We must learn how to receive afresh from God what we need for our present circumstances. It may not be what we want, but it will be what we truly need for the preservation, nurturing and sustenance of that which is essential in our lives. Our tendency is to pray for a month's supply of heavenly manna. Jesus taught us to ask for 'daily bread'.

When you hear your company has been taken over and your job is on the line, when you hear an unwelcome doctor's report, you find yourself in the midst of an uninvited personal crisis, do you react saying: "What IS this?"

The Lord knows that what we need is the incorporation of 'the bread of heaven' in our innermost being.

Jesus explained that He is that which the bread from heaven represented (the antitype). God knows and provides what you truly hunger for. He is God's provision for the starving world and your weakening spirit. He is the bread of life (John 6:31-35). When He came down from heaven, people said, "What IS this?" They did not recognize the bread of heaven when they saw it. They did not know how to appropriate the life that He freely offered them. May that not be said of us today.

We are encouraged to appropriate the life of Christ daily, lest our spiritual lives languish. We can be victorious attainers rather than constant complainers. We can appropriate the Living Bread by meditating on the written word and communing with the person of Christ, the Living Word, in our spirits. Don't live on yesterday's manna. Don't live substitute Christ for a concept. The process of eating food parallels the process by which the Word can be assimilated into our lives. First you appropriate the Word. You personalize it and make it your own. Discern what God is saying to you. Make 'S-P-A-C-E' for God's word when you read it, by asking, "Is there any Sin to confess? Promise to claim? Attitude to change? Commandment to Obey; Example to Follow?"

Some food needs to be properly chewed. The Bible describes that the word comes in different forms for feeding - milk (predigested food); and meat (messages that require the exercise of our own spiritual, mental and emotional faculties). The Word must be hid in our hearts through an ongoing process of meditation and pondering. The Holy Spirit then is able to use what has been stored up within to strengthen us and speak to us in the moment of need.

What are you doing today with the bread that God has given to feed you?