9 Our Daily Bread
Our Daily Bread
Having focused on God’s name, kingdom, and will, the Lord’s Prayer turns attention to our meals. Is this a letdown? Not at all: it is a genuine progression.
For, firstly, those who truly pray the first three petitions thereby commit themselves to live wholly for God, and the natural and logical next request is for food to give them energy for this. Dr. Johnson’s reply to the criticism that he cared much for his stomach was that those who ignore the needs of their stomach are soon in no condition to care about anything else. Christian realism? Yes, just that.
Secondly, we do in fact depend every moment on our Father Creator to keep us and the rest of the universe in being (for without his will nothing could still exist), and to sustain nature’s rhythmical functioning so that each year sees seedtime, harvest, and food in the shops (cf. Genesis 8:22); and it is right for us to acknowledge this dependence regularly in prayer, particularly in an age like ours which, having assumed nature to be self-sustaining, now has problems about the reality of God.
Some regard petitions for personal material needs as low-grade prayer, as if God were not interested in the physical side of life and we should not be either. But such hyper-spirituality is really an unspiritual ego-trip; see how in Colossians 2:23 Paul warns that man-made asceticism does not stop indulgence of the flesh (i.e., the sinful self). Petitions looking to God as the sole and omnicompetent source of supply of all human needs, down to the most mundane, are expressing truth, and as the denying of our own self-sufficiency humbles us, so the acknowledging of our dependence honors God. Neither our minds nor our hearts are right till we see that it is as necessary and important to pray for daily bread as for (say) the forgiveness of sins.
Thirdly, God really is concerned that his servants should have the food they need, as Jesus’ feedings of the 4,000 and 5,000 show. God cares about physical needs no less than spiritual; to him, the basic category is that of human needs, comprising both.
The Body
This petition shows us how to regard our bodies. The Christian way is not to deify them, making health and beauty ends in themselves, as modern pagans do; nor is it to despise them, making scruffiness a virtue, as some ancient pagans (and Christians too, unfortunately) once did. It is rather to accept one’s body as part of God’s good creation, to act as its steward and manager, and gratefully to enjoy it as one does so. Thus we honor its Maker. Such enjoyment is in no way unspiritual for Christ’s disciples; for them, it is like their salvation, the Lord’s free gift.
The Bible opposes all long-faced asceticism by saying that if you enjoy health, good appetite, physical agility, and marriage in the sense that you have been given them, you should enjoy them in the further sense of delighting in them. Such delight is (not the whole, but) part of our duty and our service of God, for without it we are being simply ungrateful for good gifts. As Screwtape truly said (with disgust), “He’s a hedonist at heart”: he values pleasure, and it is his pleasure to give pleasure. Well did some Rabbis teach that at the judgment God will hold against us every pleasure that he offered us and we neglected. Do we yet know how to enjoy ourselves—yes, physically too—to the glory of God?
Material Needs
Note that we are to pray for our daily bread. There is intercession for other Christians here as well as petition for oneself. And “bread,” man’s staple diet in both the ancient and the modern worlds, stands here for all life’s necessities and the means of supplying them. Thus, “bread” covers all food; so the prayer is for farmers and against famine. Again, the prayer covers clothing, shelter, and physical health; so the prayer becomes an intercession for social and medical services. Or again, the prayer covers money and power to earn, and so becomes a cry against poverty, unemployment, and national policies which produce or prolong both. Luther wished that rulers put loaves rather than lions in their coats of arms, to remind themselves that their people’s welfare must come first, and he urged that it is under this clause of the Lord’s Prayer that prayer for those in authority most properly comes.
Daily
J. B. Phillips correctly rendered this clause “give us this (each) day the bread we need.” We are told to ask for bread, as the Israelites were told to gather manna, on a day-to-day basis: the Christian way is to live in constant dependence on God, a day at a time. Also, we are to ask for the bread we need; i.e., for the supply of necessities, not luxuries we can do without. This petition does not sanctify greed! Moreover, we must as we pray be prepared to have God show us, by his providential response of not giving what we sought, that we did not really need it after all.
Now comes the real test of faith. You, the Christian, have (I assume) prayed for today’s bread. Will you now believe that what comes to you, much or little, is God’s answer, according to the promise of Matthew 6:33? And will you on that basis be content with it, and grateful for it? Over to you.
Further Bible Study
God provides:
Psalm 104
Matthew 6:19-34
Questions for Thought and Discussion
Do you agree that God is as concerned about physical needs as he is about spiritual ones? Why or why not?
As good stewards, what attitudes should we have toward our own bodies?
Why, and in what sense, is Christianity meant to be a day-at-a-time life?