19B18. 1 Kings 19:4-8. “Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert,” but could go no further on his own energy, “saying: ‘This is enough, O Lord! Take my life.’” Nonetheless, an angel of the Lord came, providing him with enough food and drink that “he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.”

John 6:41-51. “The Jews murmured about Jesus because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” Since they knew his natural father and mother, seen him grow from birth till now, they thought, “How can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus, because they have seen or heard of the stupendous miracles and things he has done, expects that they realize that he is not just of natural origins. Jesus quotes the prophets, saying, “They shall be taught by God.” Continuing on, Jesus says, “Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me.” Listening to the Father requires that we are people of lives of a deep faith that enables us to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear a God who is both invisible and inaudible. Often in the Gospels we read that Jesus went to pray. In his divinity he needed no prayer but in his humanity he needed to nourish himself in conversation with his Father. True prayer requires that we discern how the presence of God communicates with us through the manner in which things unfold in our lives, in what we may read or may hear that others say, in the thoughts and emotions that unfold around us and within us. To be a truly faith filled, spiritual people we can no longer limit ourselves to a visible, audible world. To open ourselves to the spiritual world requires that we be brave and trusting enough to let go of what we know so to land in the hands of caring and loving Lord into what we do not know, can see or hear. In 2 Corinthians 5:6, Paul writes: “So we are always courageous, although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.” We look beyond a world that we readily grasp and comprehend. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:18, “As we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.” Learning from God the Father requires that we have a mind humble and open to what God wants of us. We let God be truly God over us. That is what it means to believe in God and that belief leads to eternal life. The bread of this life will only get us into the grave but not beyond it. Eating the bread that is Jesus gives us the life that is forever.

Ephesians 4:30-5:2. “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.” The Holy Spirit is always trying to make us saints so that one day we will rejoice in heaven. Do not make the devil dance by being people who not have life of Jesus within us. “Be kind to one another, compassionate.” “So be imitators of God, as beloved children, (made in his image and likeness) as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.” In Matthew 5:48 Jesus says, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”