Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor
I like to think that the prayer has answers to most every struggle. The problem is that I’ve said the prayer, the “Our Father” we called it as children, so many times that I often forget to say it, or rather, I forget to mean it.
So I try to think more deliberately on the prayer as I speed recite it before my thoughts wander, or drowsily slip in and out of phrases before sleep. When I have done that recently, I was surprised by how powerfully I was struck by one line:
“give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11)
I struggle to trust in the Lord. I do the pseudo-trust; believe He has everything sorted so long as I have an idea of how it is going to work out. But recently, the chasm of the unknown has been opening to darker depths in my life, and I am faced with the thought of trusting the Lord because I truly don’t know how things will work out, rather than because I do.
So that brings us back to the Prayer. There it is in the words I have said nearly every day of my life – give us this day our daily bread. The Lord tells us to ask for bread for this day. The Bible is full of reminders not to worry, not to agonize over the morrow, and they are beautiful and poetic, but what I like about the Prayer is how very simple it is. All we have to do is ask for bread each day. It is this each day which makes the phrase so strikingly powerful, as it contains no practical knowledge of where it is coming from, how and when we will get it, essentially, it encapsulates complete trust.
The fact that we are asking for bread – one of the most basic foods – is powerful in itself. Bread is not exciting, exotic, or unique, but it is sustaining, wholesome. Such a simple message, yet so profound when I remember to really hear it – give us bread this day, Lord, give me what I need for today, and tomorrow, I can choose to ask for it again.
Tania likes to worry far too much. A midst the flurry of finishing up college, she must constantly remind herself to let the Lord be in charge. When she isn't working or worrying, she loves reading, running, throwing pots (on wheels, not at walls), and going for walks in the beautiful fall-burnt woods.