February 26, 2021
…Give us each day our daily bread. – Luke 11:3
As we come to this line of the Lord’s prayer, I must confess it is one of the hardest lessons for me personally to learn. In the wisdom of Jesus, teaching his disciples to pray, he reminds them that they need nothing more from God, than just enough for today.
As a planner, as a big picture person, I desire to know what coming, to be ready for it. However, I know that I can’t always know that. The truth of this portion of the Lord’s prayer, is that is moves us towards and infants level of dependency upon God. When we love and care for an infant, we know that everything they need is reactionary. They’re hungry, and they cry; they need a change, so they cry; they are tired, so they cry. As an infant, we desire for the need of the moment to be met by those who love us.
Jesus is teaching us that God, our heavenly Father, is there to meet the need of the moment; however, we need to rely in that moment. However, our minds and perceptions of the world have changed as grew, and we like to plan for our future needs, we like to have enough, and leftovers for a rainy day, we like to be self-dependent.
Personally, I don’t find anything wrong with self-dependance, this is the great hope of life to be able to provide and comfortable life for us and those whom we love. However, spiritually, we still need to learn that all we need is enough for today.
In Exodus 16 when God rains down manna from heaven, or in John 6, when Jesus feeds the 5,000, we see the provision of God to meet the needs of the people in that moment, give us each day our daily bread. And in each of these stories, every person has exactly what they need to fill their bellies.
In our own lives the blessings of God sometimes come as more than we could ever imagine at times. Yet, there are those time when we sit around and say “I could really use a blessing.” These are the times when we struggle, when we don’t know what the next step is in this life. These are the times when we begin to grumble because things aren’t going as we had planned.
It is in times of our greatest trial that we need be reminded most, that we have asked for this day’s daily bread. Perhaps we don’t need to have an abundance today, we don’t need to plan for the provisions of a day down the road. Perhaps we need to but trust that this day’s needs will be met.
Our daily bread isn’t always the food we eat, but our daily bread is sometimes the money we need, sometimes the spiritual comfort we need, sometimes the healing we need, sometimes the embrace or love we need. But in all cases our daily bread is something we need. And I do believe in that old song “all I have needed thy hands hath provided.” God is providing our daily bread, we simply need to trust, and know God will be there also, tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after.
Grace & Peace,
Sam