Dispatch #5
A Hollowed-out Loaf of Bread
Welcome! These are dispatches — firsthand reports from the interior life of faith, sent from the frontier as they happen. If you have arrived here without reading the earlier entries, you may find yourself disoriented. That is not a failure of imagination; it is simply that these accounts assume some familiarity with the Inner Room and the practice of entering it. Start with Learning to Enter for a plain-language introduction to the practice, then read the full series in order at Dispatches from the Inner Room & Other Frontiers. The sequence matters.
Some visits to the Inner Room don’t come with a lesson attached. Sometimes, they come with a picture, and we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words. This dispatch recounts one such visit.
It was Sunday morning. 11:00 am. We sat together in a circle—a familiar Sunday house church gathering. We had just taken the bread and the wine at the Lord’s Table, finishing with those familiar words of the liturgy: “Let us now feed on Him in our hearts by faith.” As is our custom at The Furnace Christian Fellowship, we set aside time after receiving the bread and the wine to collectively enter the Inner Room and act upon that phrase immediately.
So, I closed my eyes and sat quietly. I asked the Holy Spirit to take me to the Inner Room.
Moments later, that familiar room came into focus, and this time I found myself seated at the table with Jesus sitting across the table from me. He handed me one half of a loaf of bread. Fitting, really, since we had just shared communion together.
Before I realized it, I had hollowed out the loaf, pulling away the soft center and leaving the crust like a big shell, still in my hand, untouched.
I noticed that Jesus was watching me intently, and I guess I felt a little embarrassed about it once I recognized what I had done.
Do you know why you did that? he asked.
“No. It just happened,” I replied. “I didn’t choose to do it… at least, I don’t think I did.”
Jesus smiled a big disarming grin, and then spoke softly.
Paul wrote about milk for infants and meat for those who are mature. Do you remember?
Yes, I do.
This loaf is no different.
How so?
The soft part of the bread is easier to receive. That does not make it less real or less important or less mine to give. But growth and maturity means learning to take the whole loaf, not only the part that comes easiest. There’s as much life in the crust as in the crumb.
I looked at the crust still sitting untouched on the table.
“I think I’ve been favoring the soft part.”
Most do, at first. It is simply where you start. That is not a failure, but you are called to go deeper.
I mulled that phrase over in my mind: “Called to go deeper.” Indeed, I am… deeper in Christ… and that’s what I want… to know Him more deeply… more intimately.
I picked up the loaf and finished it, crust and all. It took me longer to consume than the fluffy soft center, but it was true and nourishing. And as I chomped and chewed under His watchful gaze, I felt the pleasure of my Lord who gave the whole of His life for me… that I might know him fully.
