Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6:11, NKJV
Our Daily Bread
In Matthew 6, Jesus’ disciples ask Him how they should pray. So Jesus teaches them a very simple prayer that covers the basic areas of life. Jesus’ model for prayer orients our hearts toward God and His kingdom work on earth. And in the middle of that prayer, Jesus prays, “Give us today our daily bread.”
What Jesus is showing us is this: God wants us to bring everything to Him in prayer—even the small things. God cares about us and our needs.
This prayer also points out that it is God who gives us good things and provides for us. While it may seem like we earn our own basic necessities, it is actually God who gives us our breath and our ability to work and earn a wage. God even created the very food that we eat.
Everything we have comes from God. That means we can spend time in prayer thanking Him for what He has given us, and talking to Him about our needs.
What’s significant is that Jesus doesn’t ask for God to provide His needs for tomorrow or next week —He only asks for His needs today. Our whole life can change in an instant, and things we’ve stored up for years can be taken away. But Jesus teaches us to depend on God to meet our needs day by day. Dependence on God takes trust—but when we trust in Him, we end up living by God’s power and provision rather than our own.
Take some time today and thank God for what He has given you. Thank Him for taking care of your basic needs each and every day, and ask God to continue to meet your needs each and every day. Consider how you can live with an increasing awareness of God as your provider. He loves you and cares for you.
Note after sharing the devotional: Three things are resonating with me today -- first, the line from the first screenshot from my devotional on my phone saying, The message of Jesus is life-changing, yet beautifully simple: God’s love and forgiveness are available to all; second, via a different devotional I came across the verse from Proverbs 18:21 which says Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit; and third, I happened to be going through some very old blog posts and came across some things I shared all the way back in 2007 after my childhood cat Maggie’s passing that led to more thoughts.
I’ll start with the second point first. If I’m honest, I don’t love the verse from Proverbs 18:21. I’ve always struggled with intrusive thoughts throughout my life, and this pattern has been so deeply embedded that I almost never notice it until I catch myself reacting to said intrusive thoughts by counterarguing against them out loud. While I recognize and understand that the point of the verse from Proverbs is a challenge to notice, step up, and take ownership of the words that come out of my mouth (really, I sense it is meant to be an empowering verse), it still feels more like a condemnation more than half the time. I do believe God has given me a blueprint for how to overcome it -- it involves directly speaking to the intrusive thoughts directly and casting them out in Jesus’ name (and there’s a verse for that that I do like, as shown below)...
casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 2 Corinthians 10:5, NKJV
What stops me from just going ahead and doing the above is that by the time I’m aware something is wrong, I’ve already been so deluged by not only the intrusive thoughts but also by my compulsion to counter-argue to try to shut them up that I feel too exhausted to even fight.
One solution to fight against this and have some long-term success is to have established routines that start early in the day. Reading my Bible and praying (especially by following prayer prompts) are a great start. This year, I’ve begun creating an intricate chart of all the different things I need to track, especially as it relates to setting and meeting goals. There are times where I’ve gotten a little too bogged down in the details relating to these charts. One thing I have been learning about myself, however, is that it is better to have too much structure and detail than not enough. It often has been when I haven’t had enough structured time that these battles have seeped in, and before long, have taken over my mind.
There are more pieces to this part of the puzzle that I need to figure out and solve, but I have found taking this step (creating routines and structures for myself, and following them as religiously as I can) to be successful.
Regarding the third point - re-reading the post (and especially in light of my habit of speaking negative words out loud during my own mental shadowboxing and that leading me to also regularly question my own faith and salvation status) momentarily turned on its head my understanding about my own faith and salvation status. Over the last ten-plus years, I’ve been telling myself that I got saved in 2013, first privately in March and then publicly in December when I got baptized. Part of why this is also such a big deal (aside from the obvious) is that, prior to this point, it bugged me when I would hear other people’s salvation testimonies which included a specific moment in time where they got saved, and I hadn’t yet had that. Then, I would read that post from 2007 and find myself amazed at the things I wrote that communicated what I appeared to understand correctly (along with other things that I completely got wrong) which led me to wonder if somehow, somehow, I was in fact saved then but missed that fact this whole time. This would include statements such as:
- I have this personal tradition of saying the Lord's Prayer ... silently while the plane is gunning down the runway. I always try to time it so that right after I say "Amen" the plane lifts off the ground...
- As a kid I had a fear of death, because I wasn't sure what would happen after. ... I was afraid, having understood the observer's point of view, that if any of us happened to have it occur to us individually we would just stop being able to think, perceive and understand. I have absolutely no recollection of life before I was born, not even in a place far away from earth. I recall fearing that I would forget everything and not be able to see or do anything new. I think faith has something to do with overriding this fear.
- Over the last couple years I've grown in my faith, but as I look at it throughout my entire life I can't physically remember what kind of faith I had before. I must've had some of it, because I recall writing in one of my college application essays (I was describing one of the compositions I was sending in) something about Jesus rising from the dead to free us from bondage of sin. I think it was one of a few things I actually believed. ... contrary to what I may have thought of my earlier past self over the last two-plus years, I always had faith; I just never really realized it.
- I also was wrestling with why we--humans, animals, plants, etc--have to go through this mortal life if God is waiting on the other side to either welcome or judge us.
There were quite a few things that young-adult me understood, apparently quite well. There were also some things I clearly did not understand:
- If our hearts are good and our actions show it, then life will pretty much be a breeze.
- And, knowing that God himself is all about goodness and those that reflect it, there is always the question of the people that don't fall under these categories. Why, then, do they exist? I like to think that they merely have a much harder road to travel, or less likely, that they act as our tests or temptors.
To the above, the Bible has this to say regarding the faulty thinking that I had:
These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33, NKJV
that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Matthew 5:45, NKJV
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9, NKJV
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. James 1:13, NKJV
Finally, the first listed point: The message of Jesus is life-changing, yet beautifully simple: God’s love and forgiveness are available to all. Interestingly, I even wrote the below statement from that 2007 blog post that interestingly seems to fit here:
- And while I was reflecting over the first few days of break, I was praying that she was (finally) able to understand that we loved her, even though there was no way for us to really communicate it. That in itself tore me up more than her death did.
- what gives it all meaning is the love that we share with each other. If I had never loved Maggie or my late grandparents or anyone else that I knew (or received it in return), it wouldn't be so painful when their respective lifetimes reached the end. At the end of the day, it's what connections we make with each other that gives meaning to an otherwise bland sequence of events that make up life.
Again, I erroneously also referred to life as utterly meaningless (which is wrong), but the overriding point is that love matters. Even when the Bible itself refers to life as vanity (like it does below in the book of Ecclesiastes), at the end even it states that the point of the matter is to fear God and keep His commandments, which are to love Him with your all and to love others.
“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever. Ecclesiastes 1:2-4, NKJV
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether good or evil. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, NKJV
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40, NKJV
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:16-17, NKJV
Prayer: God, when I am overwhelmed, Your Word reminds me of Your goodness. Thank You for Your provision and faithfulness even when I fall short. Help me to seek You first every day through Your Word--for You alone will sustain me. In Jesus’s name, Amen.