There are days in our house where the expression “going global” has nothing to with plans for international travel. I recently had one of those days when my frustration over our adult son’s struggles went from mild irritation at another pointless phone conversation to full-blown aggravation at him and everything else in my life that I couldn’t control.

I went global and became omniscient in just under 10 minutes, and in my newly acquired all-knowing-ness declared: “God’s answer to our prayers about our son is no, and we are going to have to live with this the rest of our lives.” Full stop.

My husband interrupted my global trip. “We don’t know that. We only know what happened today.”

My thoughts spilled over from our son to everything else in my life that I couldn’t control. The list was quite long because, after all, most everything in life is something I don’t control. But God does.

Going global goes everywhere and leaves my heart nowhere. And that is where I meet God and pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Daily bread. The Lord’s answer when the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, on the verge of going global: “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:3)

Daily bread. The Lord’s provision to Elijah during a drought in Israel came first from ravens and then from a widow who was on the verge of going global: “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” (1 Kings 17:12.) The widow, however, chose to believe the prophet and ate daily bread from an endless supply of flour and oil.

Daily bread. In John 6, Jesus took a day’s lunch of five barley loaves and two fish and fed 5000 men, with leftovers for another meal. Instead of serving the leftovers the next day, Jesus offered the crowd that followed him true bread of heaven; he offered them himself, the Bread of Life.

“Sir, give us this bread always.” (John 6:34)

My mother had dementia, and when she was “sundowning,” her confusion and agitation increased. After a hard day when we both went global, I parked her on the sofa in the family room and said, “Sit. We both need to calm down.” I then played Fernando Oretga’s song “Give Me Jesus.”

“Give me Jesus
Give me Jesus
You can have all this world
But give me Jesus”

Ortega sang.

My mom’s confusion and my agitation ceased.

Give us this day our daily bread.
Give us this bread always.
Give me Jesus.