Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Give us today our daily bread.

• Matthew 6:11

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.

• Genesis 45:1

Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.

• Exodus 32:25

As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.”

• Acts 24:25

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
“About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

• Matthew 20:1-16

“The ‘daily bread’ variety of prayers is also a battle cry, a declaration of war against one of the soul’s fiercest enemies»-control. Regardless of Enneagram number, Myers-Briggs type, stage of life, or upbringing, everyone wants control. Every last one of us lives with the insatiable desire to get control over our own lives, an inescapable attraction to that original lie, ‘You can be your own god.’
“Like every variety of fallenness, control is a good desire that is out of order. Control is a surface-level symptom of a soul-level desire for fruitfulness. We want to live consequential lives. We want to make a marked difference in the world, to matter in both a personal and profound way. But when we clinch our jaws and put that desire into action, we end up exhausted and overwhelmed. …
“When we trust God with our worldview but not our current experience in the world, we are falling victim to the lure of control. How many of us are exhausted, overwhelmed, and chronically anxious because we’re trying to satisfy good desires by the wrong means?
“Jesus teaches us to include the phrase ‘give us’ in our prayers. Daily, as we ask, he weans us off our addiction to independence, our insistence on living under the illusion that what we most deeply desire we can feed ourselves all on our own. Our requests are not the spoiled whining of a child or the shaking change cup of a beggar. Daily bread prayers are a daily reminder that we are not in charge, not in control.
“Prayer replaces control with trust. A God-given desire is only fulfilled by God-given means.”

• Tyler Staton, Praying like Monks, Living like Fools

Rev. Staton speaks of control being one of many things that we desire that is good, but only to a certain point.  Joseph had self-control to a point.  He was able to control his emotions around his brothers, but he had his Egyptian servants leave the room before he lost control, revealing his true identity to his brothers.  The Israelites had no self-control at all, having Aaron make them a golden calf to worship.  And Paul told Felix that self-control was a good thing.

But when we think, and really, do many think in such terms?  We all want more than a day’s rations.  Many of the poor, especially in countries with a lot of poor people and not much middle class, live day to day, getting paid at the end of the day.  The parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20 illustrates that.  You work and then you get paid.  Then you take that one coin, the denarius, equal to a day’s wages, and you provide your family with it, not much left over.

I worked in India and Thailand in the late 1990s.  In both countries at the time, a common laborer who was male got one dollar each day.  The common laborers who were female got about 80 cents per day.  Of course, the exchange rate with the Indian rupee and the Thai baht changes.  The idea of the gender difference was that men had stronger structure, on the whole, and some were more highly skilled.  In India, I watched as the man pressed a button to start the concrete mixer.  A line of women formed with what seemed to be a wok on their heads.  The man took the wok, filled it with concrete, and then the woman placed the wok back on her head.  She walked up a huge flight of stairs, equal to about two and a half floors.  She gave the wok to another man who had placed two pieces of glass on the concrete floor, placed on edge, carefully cut one inch wide (or some metric equivalent of 2.5cm).  He poured the concrete into the gap between the two pieces of glass, and he smoothed and spread the concrete.  In this fashion, he provided a smooth work surface above the roughly poured concrete floor.  He was skilled, but he did not work very hard.  Albeit he might have back problems being hunched over all day.  The first man was also the man who made sure that the blend of coarse aggregate (small rocks), fine aggregate (sand), cement, and water was just right, but then he simply pushed a couple of buttons for the next few hours.  Easy work, and some knowledge in concrete making.  But although you might not see any skill for the women, they hauled tons of steel over the course of the week on their heads, a few pounds each trip of maybe a mile round trip, most of the women not even using a hand to steady the load.

Note: If you think my estimate to be too exaggerated, the wok might have held a half cubic foot of concrete, maybe more.  One cubic yard of concrete weighs a ton.  Therefore, every fifty-four trips each woman made meant each woman carried a ton of concrete on their heads.  And over the course of seven days, working 10-12 hours a day, each woman carried multiple tons of concrete in a week’s time, all for about $5.60 for the week, paid daily.  The button pusher and the concrete finisher were paid $7.00 for the week.  All of them greeted us with a smile each day.  There was laughter as they worked.  And the 6–7-year-old children babysat the younger children in shaded areas under the stairs.

In the featured photograph, there was another crew who were digging the foundations to build a second production line next to the first line, using the same methods. We would not return to commission the second line for seven more years.

But in the USA, we are like the workers in the parable who had worked all day, and we want more than a day’s wages in return.  And people are protesting that the hourly wage be $15.  Compared to the Indian woman working twelve-hour days, that is more than 32 times more pay for less work (no smoke breaks, trips to the coffee pot, etc.) and easier work.  We see the perceived injustice, although we already agreed to the wages up front.  We have money in the bank, most do.  We get paid weekly, biweekly, twice each month, or monthly.  As a salaried employee, I have been paid in each of those fashions.  Budgeting, when most bills are monthly, gets confusing when switching from one to another.  My wife hated the new style of payment, even when it was better.  She had gotten used to the old style.

The concept of “daily bread” is lost in that situation.  Besides I am reminded of an old Wendy’s commercial, “Where’s the beef?”  Could we ever be satisfied with only a little bread?

But the concept of control is possibly my biggest sin issue.  It is what made me hesitate in making a total commitment to Jesus, more than fifty years ago.  I have far too often said, “God, I have this.  This is an easy thing to do, and You gave me the skill to do it.”  Ouch.  Big mistake.  Forget daily bread, to get to daily bread, I need God every minute of every hour in that day.

I hear all these people talk about the wonderful gifts God has bestowed on them.  They usually mean the large bank accounts, the knowledge and skill to do work that is richly paid, and the health in which to maintain that job.  But do they ever rely on God for their daily bread?  Ever?  No!  They took those gifts they claim God gave them so that they would not have to rely on Him.

Maybe not all of them.  The story of Job comes to mind.  How many would curse God if everything they considered God giving them was taken away?

I love the idea of getting my Social Security Check once each month.  Hey, I earned it, and the government squandered my investment, or I could be getting more.  But I have enough.  Yet, I still pray that prayer for my daily bread.  Each day, it seems knew aches and pains form.  Each day, I find it harder to get up.  If I had to walk up two flights of stairs to get to the computer, instead of walking down two flights, it might take me longer to start working.  And by the time my water pill starts working and I must walk up those two flights of stairs, briskly, I am more limber and more motivated.

And I thank God that I have that which God knows is enough.  I have learned how to turn control of everything over to Him.  He gives me the ideas that I write about.  He gives me the clarity of mind to do the writing and the health to do it.  And He gives me quiet time to reflect on things and worship Him all the more.

Lord, guide me. There are times when I take control and it always ends badly.  I confess those times to You now.  And Lord, please help me to never forget that I ask You to GIVE me my daily needs.  For it all comes from You.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.