Give us this day our daily bread—April 2020

Give us this day our daily bread.”

The words of Jesus in the Lord’s Prayer

For 22 years I’ve been an outside sales rep for my company. I thoroughly enjoy the work, the challenges and opportunities and the life it has provided for me and mine. I’ve met some of the most resilient and resolved people in the world who comprise the American small business community. I’ve traveled to something like 34 of the states training our team and I’ve been afforded vacation travel to tropical paradises all over the Caribbean and Western Mexico. I’ve even been resourced to go on mission ventures in Central America and Africa for the last decade all because of my job.

The work is a daily faith walk. I sell a one year renewable subscription to a great service. There’s no guarantee I’ll sell everyday, only the assurance I won’t sell (and therefore won’t earn) if I don’t show up and work everyday. The reality and weight of the daily-getting-it-done was gracefully eased in me when I learned that a good plan of sales calls greatly increased my likelihood of daily selling. I always “plan tomorrow before I go home today”. Even through early March this year I had plans out a quarter at a time and travel inked and penciled in months in advance. 

Then we all felt the downshift.

When that moment presented itself, the president of my company canceled all flights for trainings for two weeks with the understanding more could/would get canceled as the situation unfolded. That left me to adjust over a weekend because I am always slated to train someone somewhere in the near future and now I was instantly not doing two ticketed training trips. I was now going to be working close to and from home until, just until.

And it was...unsettlingly settled.

Because that is how it was.

I produced well that first freed up week. And I really didn’t need to travel far or be gone all day, everyday as the phone became a greater resource. The guy I was slated to train in Kansas did well solo, too. We both took the challenge of that moment and made more than lemonade.

Now, we’re all weeks deep in the new reality and I’m finding myself understanding that line in the Lord’s Prayer with a fresh clarity. It’s a DAILY prayer, a DAILY request, a DAILY reminder. I’m still blessed to be able to work from home as I’ve pivoted to more phoning and emailing vs my preferred face to face visits. I’ve been leading our whole sales team that way, too. 

And it is settling in.

Those resilient and resolved clients of mine are navigating in new ways too. 

We are all innovating and many are actually thriving day by day.

I’m praying with less down-the-road-ness and a whole lot of “Bless THIS day with your provision, Holy Father.” To live with an immediate and refreshed sense of “there is only now” has actually been stabilizing. I can do today, nothing more. I must do today because this is all I can effect. And it’s been freeing. Now, for clarity, I’d still rather be out seeing the clients like I was prior to the downshift, but here we are.

And here we shall be for a bit.

And it is continuing to settle day by day.

Today, give us our daily bread.

And a day’s worth of kindness, patience, courage and generosity. 

Give me this day what this day will require of me for that will be enough.