SM #32: Our Daily Bread

Give us today our daily bread. ~ JESUS (Matthew 6:11)

SUMMARY: Read this and skip the rest (if you want)

• The request for our daily bread is the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer. The first three focussed on God's name, God's kingdom, and God's will.

• The plural pronouns remind us that we are called to serve one another and rely on one another to help bring God's answer to this prayer.

• The present day focus of this part of the prayer makes it clear that the Lord's Prayer was meant to be prayed at least once every 24 hours.

• Research suggests that what we label as depression and anxiety may really be spiritual hunger.

• Jesus is our manna, our daily bread from heaven.

• Unanswered prayer should not threaten our faith, since unanswered prayer is at the heart of our faith - the cross of Christ.

CORE

(The heart of the message)

Asking for our daily bread is asking for more of Jesus, the Bread of Life.

CONTEXT

(What’s going on before and after this passage)

So far in the Lord's prayer we have asked for three things:

1. For God to make his name honoured,

2. For God to bring his kingdom, and

3. For God's will to be done on earth as in heaven.

God's name, God's reign, and God's rule. These are three variations of the same request for God to be glorified. And together they remind us of an important truth:

Before we get to asking anything for ourselves we should be rooted in the reality that prayer is primarily God-focussed, not us focussed.

Now, having prayed for God's glory, we pray for our good. These two things - God's glory and our good - are in cooperation not competition. So we take time to pray about our own needs.

If prayer is a kind of wartime walkie-talkie (as we discussed in our last study), then we will use it not only to call in more fire power (thy kingdom come) but to request essential supplies, provisions, rations, and reinforcements to help us win this war.

Prayer is more of a wartime walkie-talkie to call in fire support and supplies than a domestic intercom to ring the butler.

CONSIDER

(Observations about the passage)

Give. The word for "give" is not a demand but the request for a gift to be bestowed. Even though most of us work, earn money, and use that money to buy or make our own bread and other necessities, Christ-followers see everything we have as a gift. We may have earned it, but the fact we have the ability to earn, purchase, or make anything is itself a gift. All of life is gift. All of life is grace. And so we are a people filled with gratitude because gratitude is the only appropriate response to grace.

Today/Daily. We pray for our daily bread, not our weekly or monthly bread. Following Jesus is a one-day-at-a-time experience, a day-by-dayness. (Remember this later when Jesus teaches on the topic of worrying about the future.) The word for "today" is straightforward. It is a compound word made up of the Greek words for "this" and "day". It roots the Lord's Prayer in the present. This is our definitive evidence that Jesus expected us to pray this prayer at least once every 24 hours. Prayer is not meant to ruminate in the past or fixate on the future. Jesus teaches us to pray for today, not for later this week or any other longer period of time. The Lord's Prayer is meant to be a daily prayer. So, if we have an exam on Friday, we do not pray every day of that week, "Father help me do well on my exam on Friday" but "Father help me study well and learn all I can today." We can pray about Friday on... you guessed it... Friday. The second word, translated "daily" here, is less straightforward. It occurs only here and in the Lord's Prayer in Luke 11:3 in the entire Bible. Usually we zero in on the best translation for a word by comparing how it is used in different contexts, but this word doesn't give us these clues. In fact, this Greek word (epiousion) isn't found anywhere else in all of existing ancient Greek writings. (The nerdy way of expressing this is to say epiousion is a "hapax legomenon" - meaning it only appears in these limited instances and does not provide the possibility of comparing how it is used in other biblical or non-biblical sources.) The word is literally epi (upon) + eime (to be). This has lead to four main translations throughout the centuries of: 1) Today's bread, 2) Tomorrow's bread, 3) Enough bread, 4) Life-giving bread (Bread of life). Does one of those resonate with you more? Perhaps all of the above are captured in this one ancient and mysterious word. Putting this all together, a best guess translation might be "Give us this day enough bread to sustain us for the day ahead". If prayed at night, it refers to tomorrow. If prayed in the morning, it refers to today. The play on time - today's bread and/or tomorrow's bread - also allows this prayer to think into the future full realization of the Kingdom. Jesus talked about his Kingdom as a great Banquet (Matthew 20; Luke 14). So we may be praying that today we want to experience a taste of the heaven that is ahead of us. As we discussed in our last post, Christ's kingdom is both present and future, "now-and-not-yet", and Christian identity does not fixate on our past but leans into our future. So, if we emphasize the "tomorrow" translation (#2 above) then we might be praying dailly "Give us today a taste of your future kingdom". Also, the idea of "just enough bread" or "a sufficient amount for the day" (#3 above) is particularly meaningful, since it resonates the value of simplicity that Jesus will teach later in the Sermon on the Mount and it reinforces these wise words from other parts of the Bible:

Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. ~ Agur son of Jakeh (Proverbs 30:7-9)

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. ~ The apostle Paul (1 Timothy 6:6-10)

Day by Day (Godspell), captures the simplicity vibe of this prayer so well.

Watch the clip here.

Us / Our. The pronouns are both possessive and plural. First, possessive: It's not "the" bread or even "your" bread, but "our" bread. We are not praying for God to help us take what belongs to someone else. We want everyone to be blessed with this bread. Then, plural: When we get alone in our prayer closet, we pray this for more than just ourselves. Every part of this prayer is on behalf of our entire family of faith, everyone included in the "Our" of Our Father. This focus protects us from self-centredness and brings us into solidarity with human need beyond ourselves. This daily prayer helps us stay socially aware and helps us practice a Kingdom consciousness. If we struggle to know what to pray because we think "I already have enough, so why pray for more?" let us remember the plural pronouns and pray for those who do not have enough. And remember that God wants to move us to become partners in answering our own prayers.

"There are enough resources in our world for everyone's needs. Just not enough for everyone's wants." ~ Tony Campolo (Sociologist)

"The gospel includes socio-economic prayers like this... {This prayer] keeps the church's conscience next to the grindstone of earthly reality and teaches her never to be more spiritual or less physical than the Lord who gave this prayer." ~ Frederick Dale Bruner (The Christbook)

Bread. For thousands of years, bread has been a global staple (along with rice). Today for many of us reading this, bread has become diminished to a snack that keeps us busy at a restaurant before our entrée arrives, or something to be avoided to cut carbs or gluten. In Bible days, bread was life. Throughout Church history, theologians have debated different possible meanings of this reference to "bread" in the Lord's Prayer. First of all, "bread" should at least mean bread, as in, the basic necessities of life. (Sometimes a loaf of bread is just a loaf of bread.) There is a beautiful simplicity here. We are told to pray for our daily bread not our daily cake. We pray for our daily needs not our daily greeds. This is a prayer for God to give us enough to help us serve his kingdom agenda one more day. Moving beyond that, it may also be a symbol for all things we need to nourish our souls beyond physical necessities: companionship, encouragement, and opportunities to serve. The idea of daily bread would remind any Jewish disciple of the daily bread that God gave Israel in the wilderness - manna. God helped Israel live one day at a time for forty years. (More on manna below.) Jesus teaching all of his disciples to pray for daily bread reminds us that we do all have needs. What a beautiful encouragement to pause daily and think about what our real needs might be. This idea of bread also foreshadows Jesus at the Passover seder saying that the broken bread represents his broken body, given to usher in the New Covenant (Luke 22:19-20). This seems to be the understanding of the early Church. For instance:

• Origen (c. 184–253 AD) writes: “It may be taken spiritually: the Word of God is the bread of the soul... So the petition would be: 'Give us today the bread of the Word of God, ever belonging to the day, never old, never yesterday’s.’”

• Jerome (c. 347–420 AD) translates the word for "daily" into Latin with a word meaning "beyond material" or "spiritual" bread.

• Augustine (c. 354–430 AD) took a both/and approach, writing: “This bread means both that which is necessary for the body, and that which is necessary for the soul” (Sermon 56).

One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. ~ JESUS (Matthew 4:4)

My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ~ JESUS (John 4:34)

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. ~ The apostle Paul (Philippians 4:19)

EXAMPLE PRAYER: Dear Father, please give me and all of us who follow you enough to sustain us today - food, friendship, and fellowship with you. Give us all the energy and opportunity we need to live as your citizens, soldiers, and ambassadors. [Then pause and think about the specific needs of yourself and others that you want to bring before God. Pray for God's sustaining sustenance in each situation. And pray for courage and conviction to act in line with what you are praying.]

As an aside: Which picture of Saint Jerome do you prefer? Santa Jerome or "Ya, I've Had Better Days" Jerome?

Santa Saint Jerome

"Ya, I've Had Better Days" Saint Jerome

COMMENTARY

(Thoughts about meaning and application)

Let's take a closer look at manna, the daily bread of Israel. We get our best picture of how God provided manna (and quail) for Israel in the wilderness in Exodus 16. It was a hard time for Israel. They already knew slavery is hard. But now they were learning that, in some cases, so is freedom.

Life - life is hard. But God - God is good.

We won't print all of Exodus 16 here, so take a few minutes now if you can read it for yourself. Here are a few truths worth mentioning...

The Bread from Heaven is…

1. Provided miraculously (Exodus 16:14)

2. Accessed personally (Exodus 16:16, 18, 21)

3. Shared relationally (Exodus 16:18; Numbers 11:7-9)

4. Absorbed daily (Exodus 16:19-21)

5. Renewed weekly (Exodus 16:5, 22-30)

6. Delicious (Exodus 16:31)

7. Jesus (John 6:27-41)

God still gives his people Bread from Heaven every day.

Let's break this down. There are so many life lessons in each observation.

1. Provided miraculously (Exodus 16:14)

There was no doubt that manna was bread from heaven. No one could be tempted to claim responsibility for God's miracle wafers that appeared on the ground each morning. Grace resulting in gratitude is the foundation of everything that follows. Yet, as with many of God's miracles, he still called upon his people to participate. God provided the manna, yet people harvested it, prepared it, and shared it.

2. Accessed personally (Exodus 16:16, 18, 21)

God still wanted his people to invest themselves in their own sustenance. He could have made the manna appear in people's mouths or stomachs or at least at the doorway of their tent, but he wanted them to gather it together. It seems they could either eat the manna as is, or they could prepare it in a variety of ways. For instance, they "ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into loaves" (Numbers 11:8). God's miracles are not meant to lull us into passivity, but designed to encourage our full participation in what God is doing. God does not want spectators, he wants partners.

3. Shared relationally (Exodus 16:18; Numbers 11:7-9; 2 Corinthians 8:13-15)

While every individual was expected to participate, the manna was shared and people took care of one another. We are responsible to help one another find daily nourishment.

"Sharing, rather than hoarding, is the mark of a functional community."

~ Amy-Jill Levine (Sermon on the Mount)

4. Absorbed daily (Exodus 16:19-21)

With the exception of once a week while preparing for the Sabbath, if anyone gathered extra manna and kept it overnight (presumably to stockpile it, or so that they didn't have to do any gathering the next day), God made it miraculously decompose. Even God's supernatural provisions are prone to maggots when we try to use them selfishly. This also emphasizes that we can't coast on yesterday's encounters with Christ. Our spiritual highs from days ago or years ago are not providing us with the spiritual nourishment we need for today. Jesus will return to the importance of one-day-at-a-time living in the Sermon on the Mount shortly (Matthew 6:31-34).

Extra protein?

5. Renewed weekly (Exodus 16:5, 22-30)

God baked a weekly rhythm into manna gathering. There is something about weekly rhythms of work and rest that God has woven into human history and into human hearts. It doesn't matter what day of the week we choose, but one day per week should be used to interrupt our regular flow of work along with others who share our same Sabbath cycle.

6. Delicious (Exodus 16:31; Numbers 11:8)

Manna tasted like "wafers made with honey" or "cakes baked with olive oil". God's sustenance doesn't just sustain us, it makes life better. Grace is the seasoning we all need.

Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. ~ The apostle Paul (Colossians 4:6)

7. Jesus (John 6:27-41)

When it comes right down to it, whether we know it or not, JESUS is what we are all really hungry and really thirsty for. Jesus explicitly equates himself with the new and improved manna in a long passage we can quote here in part:

Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. ... I am the bread of life; the one who comes to Me will not be hungry, and the one who believes in Me will never be thirsty. ... I am the bread that came down from heaven. ... I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” ~ JESUS (John 6:27-51; also see 7:37-38)

Bread and water and wine are all symbols of Jesus and his New Covenant. When we pray "Give us today our daily bread" we are praying "Father, give us more of Jesus today."

Jesus is our most important daily need.

Jesus is God's Bread from Heaven.

In Luke's Gospel, Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord's Prayer right after visiting Mary and Martha, where he tells Martha that Mary's focus on him is the "one thing" everyone needs (Luke 10:42). Luke is arranging his stories about Jesus to reinforce a point - Jesus is the daily bread we all need.

This understanding of Jesus as our daily bread is reinforced later in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus encourages us to keep on asking, seeking, and knocking on heaven's door for more (Matthew 7:7-11). More of what? Luke provides the answer: more of the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:9-13). Every day, through the Lord's Prayer, we are asking, seeking, and knocking on the door of heaven for more of what we need: the Spirit of Christ, that is, the Ghost of 1820.

It is possible, unfortunately, to be a Jesus-loving Christian and still live like a functional atheist. When we live each day consciously ignoring the one who holds the universe together (Colossians 1:15-17) we are out of tune with reality, and we can suffer soul-numbing consequences.

In her insightful book, The Awakened Brain, psychologist Dr. Lisa Miller asserts that about two-thirds of what we label as depression and anxiety is really spiritual hunger. People have a deep awareness, often subconscious, that something is missing, something is "off", and they are running on empty. For many people, genuine depression is not out of sync with reality, but rather a real dashboard warning light telling us that our lives lack ultimate connection. This can happen for faithful Christians too, so we pray daily, "Father, give us more of Jesus today."

If you get the chance to read this book, do let me know your thoughts!

Bottom Line: The gospel music artist Andraé Crouch may have been right on when he asserted that Jesus is the answer for every Question that drives the human soul.

Jesus Is The Answer For The World Today

Above Him There's No Other, Jesus Is The Way ~ Andraé Crouch (Musical Artist)

Andraé Crouch & The Disciples

So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. ~ JESUS (Matthew 6:31-34)

CONFESSION

(Personal reflection)

I confess that I am struggling with the idea of God answering prayer. Maybe I've always struggled with it. When it comes to prayer, I seem to be a man of doubt more than a man of faith. I guess that isn't surprising to me, since I have always had lots of doubts about lots of things. Doubt seems to be my natural base setting.

For instance, when I read supposedly encouraging sentiments like this one by King David...

I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread. ~ King David (Psalm 37:25)

... all I can think is: You need to get out more.

I am encouraged that Jesus seems to make room for doubters. When John the Baptist doubts if Jesus is really the Messiah, or when the apostle Thomas doubts Jesus' resurrection, Jesus provides evidence rather than scorn. And at the end of his time with the apostles, even though some of them doubt their own experience, Jesus gives them the Great Commission (Matthew 11:1-6; 28:16-17; John 20:24-29).

Doubt is different to disbelief. Jesus founded his Church on doubting believers. Doubt does not discredit faith.

With that said, I'm going to process some of my doubts about prayer here.

Thank you for your grace as I process my doubts "out loud".

I was raised on Bible teaching that seemed to suggest that prayer was a powerful way to make stuff happen, get stuff we want, and call down miracles from heaven. Popular verses that shaped my thinking were:

EXHIBIT A...

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ~ JESUS (Matthew 7:7-11)

EXHIBIT B...

Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ~ JESUS (Matthew 18:19)

EXHIBIT C...

Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ~ JESUS (Mark 11:22-25; also Matthew 21:21-22)

EXHIBIT D...

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ~ JESUS (John 15:7)

EXHIBIT E...

Is anyone among you weak? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will save the one who is weary; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. ~ James the brother of Jesus (James 5:14-16)

As isolated texts, these verses seem to support the power of prayer to change things in the world around us in significant ways. To experience these miracle answers to prayer we just have to believe strongly enough and not doubt, or agree in prayer with someone else, or abide in the words of Jesus. It's just a matter of finding the right formula, and - voila! Prayers answered. Miracles happen. Prayer changes things.

But I believe, if we are immersed in Jesus' message to us, abiding in his words, soaking in his Sermon on the Mount and other teachings, something will likely feel "off" in that kind of thinking. These bullet point promises devoid of context don't seem to fit with the rest of Jesus' way and Jesus' will. At best, when faith feels formulaic it becomes more transactional than relational. At worst, this mindset moves beyond mechanistic thinking, with prayers becoming formulas, to magical thinking, with prayers becoming spells. We just need to cast the right spell in the right way with the right words to get the right results.

Magic manipulates power. But prayer petitions a Person.

When we zoom out and look at the context of each passage, things get more nuanced. We won't unpack it all here; I will leave it for you to read for yourself. What you will find is that, in each case, something deeper is being discussed - things like assurance of eternal life, having enough faith to believe our sins really can be forgiven, believing that God no longer requires us to use any kind of Temple sacrificial system, going on mercy missions to offering that same radical and irreligious forgiveness to fellow sisters and brothers, and praying for weak and weary people who will be made whole (perhaps physically or emotionally/spiritually) through God's forgiveness and grace, either in this life and/or when raised up at the final resurrection.

Yes, Jesus says God will give us whatever we want, when what we want is grace, mercy, peace, cleansing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and a fresh start at life. That is, when we are abiding in his teaching.

Ultimately, since we are not casting spells but relating to a Person, God will filter our requests toward whatever answer will help us encounter more of HIM. Take a closer look at our "EXHIBIT A" above, this time with some nuance added by the Gospel of Luke...

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” ~ JESUS (Luke 11:9-13)

The Bible doesn't say we shouldn't pray for miracles. I just have my doubts that healings, financial blessings, and other miraculous divine interventions are what Jesus had in mind when he taught his disciples how to pray the Lord's Prayer.

There are clearly instances in the New Testament of prayers for something specific going unanswered (at least the way that is wanted by the praying person): like Paul asking God to remove his thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) or fellow workers remaining ill (2 Timothy 4:20) or the family of Lazarus no doubt praying for his healing before dying, not his resuscitation after dying (John 11).

Perhaps the story of Lazarus is the New Testament version of the peek behind the scenes that the book of Job offers in the Old Testament. There is always more going on than we see. I wonder if what happened to Lazarus is symbolic of all of our journeys.

Perhaps like Lazarus, we may not all be healed by Jesus, but we will all be raised by Jesus.

I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die. ~ JESUS (John 11:25)

Throughout the Bible God works miracles in two ways:

1. By intervening through manifestations that break the rules of nature and the normal course of history (like healings, parting water, walking on water, turning water into blood/wine, etc), and

2. By intervening through what appears to be the normal course of nature, history, and circumstance. Even and often when those circumstances are not positive.

Think of that profound commentary on the life of Joseph that he makes at the end of Genesis:

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. ~ Joseph (Genesis 50:20)

God, says Joseph, has been at work all through his own story, including the evil things that were done. God is pulling together all the human failures, fears, and foibles to accomplish something good.

And yet, here's the thing - God is never mentioned as explicitly intervening in the story of Joseph and his family to prevent the "harm" he is talking about here. God gave Joseph dreams, hurah. But God didn't actually help Joseph in any overtly miraculous way when his brothers tried to hurt him. God seems absent for that part of the story. And yet, Joseph says God was at work the whole time "behind the scenes" so to speak.

My skepticism toward the "prayer as a quick route to a miracle" or the "prayer as spell casting" way of thinking is bolstered by personal and scientific observance. For instance, I am aware of academic studies like the Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) (2006) led by Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard Medical School. It was one of the largest and most rigorous studies on the efficacy of prayer for healing. The study examined whether prayer improved recovery in patients undergoing heart surgery, and it found no significant difference in recovery rates between patients who were prayed for and those who were not. (Other studies, such as one by Dr. Randolph Byrd in 1988 at San Francisco General Hospital, claimed to show a positive effect of intercessory prayer on heart patients, but its methodology has been critiqued.)

Mind you, the "STEP" study is not the final word on intercessory prayer. For instance, this study focussed on strangers praying for strangers. My sense is, part of the power of prayer is the relational engagement it draws us into: Friends and family sharing their needs with one another and meeting together to pray for the sick, discouraged, downcast, and disheartened. Still, the STEP study does challenge traditional religious thinking about God answering prayer.

"I realize anew the most urgent question is not 'Is God good?' but rather 'What good is God?'"

- Philip Yancey (The Question That Never Goes Away)

Two words that are often translated "sick" in James 5 mean weak and weary. The "sick" person may be a discouraged person, perhaps from their own moral failure, which explains why James surrounds his prayer passage with an emphasis on forgiveness for sins. Huh. It seems that emotional encouragement and edification - lifting each other up - is a significant part of the healing process of praying together. Perhaps James' promise that the prayers of a "righteous" person are powerful and effective relies on our understanding of "righteous" being, not morally perfect, but relationally connected and compassionate. Righteousness is a big theme for Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, and as we have discussed before, righteousness means right-relatedness, including all the mercy and compassion needed to keep relationships healthy.

To be clear, I do believe God can and does work miracles today and sometimes heals people miraculously. I believe some people have the gift of healings, miracles, and faith (as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12). I don't want to discourage anyone from their hope-filled praying. But I do want to discourage the discouragement that comes when someone's faith-filled prayers seem to go unanswered. When that happens, we can open our eyes to the deeper and more life-changing ways God may be at work in and through our failures, frustrations, hurts, and heartaches.

For your average disciple, praying for "our daily bread" is not our cue to expect God to give us whatever we want. I now see praying for "our daily bread" as more of an affirmation that we will look for God's provision through every circumstance of every day of our lives, including our or another's failure, rather than a prayer for God to intervene in a way I might want to define as "miraculous". Again to be clear, I'm not saying God doesn't perform miracles today; I'm saying that I need to broaden my definition of a miracle.

So, do I think prayer actually makes a difference? Yes, absolutely, but not always the way most praying people think. God knows what I need, and what God knows I need might be different than what I think I need, and so God will take care of me according to his greater knowledge and wisdom and, lets hope, won't be distracted by my petty little prayer requests.

In fact, the thought recently occurred to me...

At the centre of our faith is the cross: a symbol of unanswered prayer.

No doubt that when Jesus was arrested, all of Jesus' disciples and family, given their belief system at the time, were praying that Jesus would not be crucified. God did not answer their prayers. Even Jesus prayed to not be crucified. And God did not answer his prayer either.

My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me! Yet not what I will, but what you will. ~ JESUS (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42)

Yes, Jesus ultimately submitted to his Father's plan, but the fact remains, Jesus asked God to alter that plan and the Father refused. Christianity only exists because God has chosen to not answer prayer when he sees fit. Let me say it again - the Christian faith is founded on the outcome of God not answering prayer.

I suppose a follower of Jesus needs to become at home with doing two things:

a) sharing our requests with God, and b) trusting God to answer according to his greater knowledge and deeper love.

In fact, if I know my prayer requests will get filtered through God's goodness, then I feel more free to ask, even if I accept the answer will often be "no". Because God's "no" will always lead to better things than my "yes" any day. God's Plan B will always be better than my Plan A.

So, I am learning to ask God for my version of "daily bread" as long as I remember that this part of the Lord's Prayer is not prayed in a vacuum. Our request for our needs comes immediately after praying "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done".

I've just started this book. Have any of you read it? Seems insightful.

CONCLUSION

(One last thought)

When we pray "Give us this day enough bread for the day ahead" we are practicing daily simplicity, contentment, faith, and dependence on Jesus. What a beautiful mindset to embrace every day.

CONTEMPLATE

(Scripture passages that relate to and deepen our understanding of this topic)

Exodus 16; Proverbs 30:7-9

CONVERSATION

(Talk together, learn together, grow together)

1. What is God revealing to you about himself through this passage?

2. What is God showing you about yourself through this passage?

3. How do you respond to the question - Why do you pray?

4. What is one thing you can think, believe, or do differently in light of what you are learning?

5. What questions are you still processing about this topic?