Seeing God’s Grace in a Chunk of Bread

She pressed the chunk of flatbread in my hand and smiled.

Glancing down, I felt its weight as I walked away, following the woman in front of me back to our seats.

We were taking communion as a fellowship of women, broken people in need of a broken Savior, and the worship that had preceded this moment had softened our hearts with His presence.

But for all that, I couldn’t help this unspiritual thought from popping into my head: How in the world am I going to eat all this bread?

During my family’s missionary years serving the Gypsies in Romania, I saw toddlers stand on the side of the road begging for food and sixteen people cram into a one-room hut they called “home.” In our church services, my father would break a few pieces of Matzo bread he had brought from America into pinky-nail-sized portions to serve the crowd.

But the bread-to-crowd ratio was inversed here, so we each got a chunk.

Sitting in my seat, I turned the bread over in my hand again and again, staring as it covered half my palm. I shut my eyes and tried to focus.

I’m sorry, Lord, I know my mind is wandering here, but I just can’t get over how big this bread is. It feels somehow irreverent to chow down a huge chunk of bread when Your body was broken for all people. Shouldn’t I get just a tiny little piece?

As I paused in prayer, an unexpected answer came: “I don’t portion out My grace in teeny servings. I give it lavishly.”

My eyes flew open and I stared at the symbol of the body of Jesus Christ broken over our sin. I hadn’t wanted to take too much, fearing it would be selfish. But would feasting on Him leave any less for my sister next to me?

His gentle voice whispered no. Jesus gave all of Himself so that we could have our fill. If every person to walk the earth would drink deeply of His grace, there would still be unfathomable depths to drink from. Because His love knows no limits.

But I often live with a mindset of spiritual poverty, as if there weren’t enough of God’s grace to go around.

As a goody-two-shoes, I used to think God would be impressed with my good habits and self-sufficiency. I thought He would be proud that I wasn’t constantly bothering Him with every little whim. He had enough on His plate with recent converts to bother Himself with cradle Christians like myself.

But as I began to understand the radical beauty of God’s grace, I realized that God wants us to realize we need Him — not just for salvation but for everyday life — and He gladly gives the humble more grace. After all, it’s the sick who need the doctor, the lost who need a Savior, and the broken who need restoration. And that’s all of us. God celebrates every time a lost sheep comes home, whether it’s their first time coming home or their thousandth. And He answers every time we call on Him.

Any time, day or night.

Any day of the week, even on the weekends.

Any moment we run to Him, even if we were just there five minutes ago.

His grace will not run out.

He’s not metering it, smacking us with a penalty charge when we’ve had an extra hard week.

And that’s the beauty of God’s incomprehensible grace — the deeper we dive, the more we discover is there.

This is the very thing Paul prayed for the Ephesians. Read his prayer carefully and relish the truth that there’s plenty of God’s love and grace to go around:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)

God’s love knows no bounds. It surpasses my comprehension even twenty years into my walk with Him. It surprises me even now.

Holding the hefty chunk of bread in my hands, I wept over my limited view of God’s grace, having carried a subconscious fear that I was taking too much. But as I took that first bite of bread, God’s Spirit assured me that He will never run out of grace for me or you, because the more we lean into Him, the more we glorify Him.

So eat, friends, and drink deeply. There’s more of Him to feast on. Much more.