The Lord’s Prayer: Relying on God

Matthew 6:11

Give us this day our daily bread

Luke 11:3

Give us each day our daily bread

Perhaps one of the hardest parts of the Lord’s Prayer is the petition to God to give us our daily bread. This petition brings with it several troubling questions that, as far as I know, may not have answers that satisfy everyone. Given that the earlier parts of this series have attempted to establish reasons to trust God and have faith Him, there’s not much else to say about why we can trust Him for provision. We’ve already decided that we honor Him because of His past actions and desire His will because we have faith in His future actions.

In God’s original plan for humanity, we lived in unbroken communion with Him. Genesis describes a place where God provided for mankind’s needs. Even still, in our fallen world, Jesus tells us that we can trust God and not be anxious.¹Matthew 6:25-30. God has given us life—will he not support that life? God feeds the small creatures—won’t He take care of us, His image-bearers? He provides beautiful “clothing” for the grass and flowers of the field—won’t He clothe the people He made? It seems like we shouldn’t have trouble relying on God for provisions, yet we do.

Jesus tells us that if we seek the kingdom of God first, then these things will be added to us.²Matthew 6:33. However, that brings us to a troubling point—what about Christians who don’t have these things? Even in the New Testament alone, we see Christians who are lacking as Paul travels from church to church looking for donations to support those poor. Outside the New Testament, the experience is still the same; Christians are not always well-off. It’s a huge question—if Christians are the people of God, shouldn’t He take care of them?

Paul gives us some insight into God’s provision in Philippians, saying that He understands how to be content in every situation, whether in situations of scarcity or situations of abundance.³Philippians 4:11-13. Paul finds the provision he needs, his daily bread, in Christ—who claims to be the bread of life that we need.⁴John 6:48. Rather than physical provisions, Paul finds his satisfaction in Christ.

Rather than physical provisions, Paul finds his satisfaction in Christ.

Paul knew what it meant to be brought low. He knew how to face hunger and need. The man who wrote much of the New Testament didn’t always have what he needed. At the very least, Paul’s life should convince us of the falseness of the prosperity gospel—that if we have faith in God, we will be happy and healthy, wealthy and wise. Paul was happy and wise because he relied on Christ, not because Christ blessed him with material things.

One important emphasis of the petition is “daily.” Because we are told not to worry about tomorrow,⁵Matthew 6:32. we only request bread for today. By “bread,” we are not simply praying that we have bread to eat, of course. Rather, we are praying for all the things involved in the productions of all the things we need for survival. We are praying for the weather and we are praying for the people involved. To quote my friend, Bishop Kenneth Myers:

All this to say one thing: When I pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” I am praying for much, much more than bread alone. Take a minute and think about it, and the next time you pray the Our Father, remember that it’s people, all the way down.⁶Kenneth Myers, “The Distribution of Labor And The Bread On My Table,” http://bishopkenneth.tumblr.com/post/51001784743/the-distribution-of-labor-and-the-bread-on-my-table (accessed September 22, 2016).

When we talk about our daily sustenance, we are both praying for our spiritual sustenance from Christ and praying for those involved with getting us our physical sustenance.

Even though we can often say, “I trust God’s will for my future,” we have a much harder time saying, “I trust God with tomorrow and my physical needs.” Perhaps it’s because we can often have some influence on our future by working for provisions on our own, and we feel like trusting God and trusting our own work are opposites. It might be because we can usually do something to make tomorrow a better day. Instead of trying to work solely under our own power, we ought to do our work and trust the Father with it, because there is no better answer at this point than Paul’s—to find satisfaction in Christ.