Baking the Shewbread

I was at the library with the kids. We love talking about biographies and real stories of people that make a difference in this world.

One of the books I was reading to them was about a wonderful group of ladies during the Civil Rights Movement.  They were called “nowhere.” They literally named themselves, “the group from nowhere.”

They pretty much single-handedly raised the funds needed to sustain the Montgomery Bus Boycott protesters and leaders. Through baking pies and cakes, selling food- hosting leaders like Martin Luther King Junior at their home- they were able to feed hundreds of hungry people and raise thousands of dollars during this time period.

And they were pretty much stayed anonymous- naming themselves “nowhere”. So that when people would ask, “Where did you get this money? Where did you get these funds? Where did you get this new station wagon from?” They said “nowhere.”

I was moved to tears- reading this story.  We have this group of women, risking their lives, risking their family (they could be thrown in Jail and lose their homes) to cook for a cause.  They risked their own health and family to bake for thousands of hours- over a hot stove to raise money for an illegal cause.

It’s was just such an amazing story.

This week, I am meditating on Leviticus 24. In order to bring the prescence into the Tabernacle- they had an entire group of priests whose only job it was to bake the bread of the presence in the Holy Tabernacle-the shewbread DAILY.  There weren’t machines that you just throw the stuff in, you press a button and you throw it in the oven and done.

Everything was made through grueling energy and time. Measuring the flour, grinding the flour, milling, heating the oven, hand-cutting all the wood, kneeding the dough for hours of time.

We don't realize how we can bring God's presence into a situation, how we can affect change in our work, our school and our family.

Bringing God’s life-giving presence  is sometimes just through simple things.

Maybe for you- every single morning. You get up And you bring worship music into the home while you make coffee.

I get breakfast, I clean the dishwasher, I have the music playing. The worship music gets playing before my kids even get up. That way I bring God's presence into the home.

And this is what I like to call “baking the Shewbread of the Presence”- my daily routine of the small ways that I can meet in God’s presence.

What's going to make the difference in this world?

The presence of God.

It’s going to change your city, your kids, your environment and your work.  What are you doing to make the bread of the presence? How do you to bring in His presence?

If that means playing worship music in the car on your way to work, if that means praying over your kids before they go to school- do that.

These things are so important.

Just like these women in the Civil Rights Movement- how they were just anonymous, behind-the-scenes, doing all these things.

You never hear about these ladies.

You don't Know most of their names. But yet they fed and gave money to an effort that now changed history. They didn't know they were changing history at the time. They were just baking their bread.

They were baking their pies. They were baking the essentials to feed the Civil Rights Movement behind closed doors.  They weren't even seen or talked about until this book came out.

I was just thinking how many times as women especially- we are not seen.  We are behind-the-scenes in our houses.  We are just cooking, cleaning and doing some of these things.

God's presence can enter into your home, into your life-just by you-working for the Lord. Knowing that you're doing it for Him and His glory.