Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. – 2 Corinthians 9:10
Sometimes God gives us something to put right on the table so we can butter and eat it. Bread.
A check in the mail at the right time. A debt canceled. A stranger buys your meal. A special gift arrives. God provides gracefully, abundantly. Without our help. Because he loves us and his nature is to give good gifts.
And sometimes God gives us something to put in the ground so we can water and tend to it, and later harvest it. Seed.
We don’t provide our own next days, next breaths, next opportunities. You wake up with an idea in your head. That’s after receiving the blessing of waking up at all. You bump into the right person on the right day and end up closing the deal or getting the job. You find the holy strength to stick out a hard situation until it turns. God supplies everything good you have. And it is he who multiplies the work of our hands as well (Deuteronomy 28 is a virtual litany of God’s determining the outcome of his peoples’ work).
I am learning not to be prejudiced or entitled about whether God provides me with bread or seed (normally its some combination and usually not what I expect), but thankful and generous with whichever it is.
[post edited 7/21/13 for clarity]