Cast That Bread Upon The Waters

"Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth." - Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 ESV

Cast your bread upon the waters. Bread is useful. Our body needs food. What a risky way to live... or is it?

I think of Moses mother putting him in a basket on the Nile.

"The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months. When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. And his sister stood at a distance to know what would be done to him. Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman, and she took it. When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, 'This is one of the Hebrews' children.' " - Exodus 2:2-6 ESV

This isn't a story. This is an account.

Risky. Trouble is coming. The instinct is to hoard.

Giving is risky. Grace is risky.

Cast it on the water. Cast the time you could have used on yourself on someone else. Cast the resources that could have built bigger barns. Cast the money on a missionary or send some children you don't know to Christian summer camp. Cast it. Throw it. Don't just toss it down where you can reach it. Throw it over a wall into another country.

God will repay. Let your belly rumble a little. God will fill it tenfold.

Moses turned out to be a great man. I think his mother made a good choice.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16 ESV

I know I quote this passage a lot. I try not to rehash ideas again and again but can you imagine it?? God cast His Son out on the harsh dark waters of this world. He didn't give something extra He had laying around. He gave the person most important and central to His eternal existence because He had confidence that His Son would lead a sinless life and because of that death would never hold Him in the grave. Jesus would return to Heaven again.

Can we live this way?

Will we?

It's a risky way to live... or is it?

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