Daily Bread

When you pray, what do you ask God for?

Jesus taught His disciples to pray for their daily bread.  It is good to bring our requests to God, our Father.  He loves us and cares for us and delights in giving us what we need.  We don’t always get what we want, but sometimes that is the best for us.  Even Garth Brooks sang that he thanked God for “unanswered prayers.”  Lift up your prayers, bringing your needs, and the needs of others, to the Father.

You might have overlooked this: Give US our daily bread.  This is not just a prayer for our personal needs, but a prayer that the community of faith, and even the entire world, will be able to eat.  We are told that our world has the ability to grow enough food to feed every person on the planet. People are starving because people hoard and take more than we need, and because of corruption, and because of selfish choices. Praying “give us our daily bread” is not just praying for what you need, but praying that you will ONLY take what you need, and learn to be generous when you have more than you need. Praying this prayer is a prayer for the world, that self-centered choices will decrease and justice and truth will prevail.

How we pray shapes us.  Jesus taught us to be shaped by this prayer.  So may we pray to our Father the prayer of the Kingdom: Give us today our daily bread.  And may He work through us to see our prayers become reality.