On Sundays, I meal-prep our main meals for the week. Last week, it was chicken breast, mixed veggies, with rice for me, along with beef patties covered with cheese for my husband’s lunch. Each day, I gratefully reheat my meal. I say gratefully because there is no daily stress about what to cook.
My gratitude turns to curiosity as I consider another section of the Lord’s Prayer. I am pondering the significance of the phrase:
Give us each day our daily bread
Luke 11:3 ESV
As I walked this morning, the word that lingered on my heart was ‘merciful’. I know that God’s mercies are new every morning. If His mercies are new every morning, that tells me it is something we need every single day.
Give Us Each Day
Every single day, we need the mercy of God to live the life He has given us.
When I connect that to how Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” I begin to see something that I hadn’t thought of before.
Jesus knows we need daily sustenance physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So “give us this day our daily bread” is not solely about physical food. It is about praying for what we need to get through this day. So, if we are going to be merciful as You are merciful, as His word says in Luke 6:36, then we need to pray for a daily dose, an infusion, of mercy.
Along with daily mercy, I believe there are days when we also need strength, comfort, hope, or wisdom. We need Him to provide whatever the moment requires. Nothing more and nothing less.
So our prayer, based on Jesus’s teaching, becomes:
Give. (because everything from Him is a gift)
Us. (because we are His body)
Enough. (because that is sufficient for our needs)
For now. (because it’s for the moment)
Give us enough for now
As a body of believers, our corporate prayers are desperately needed. There is no need to gather excess manna that will go to waste, just as Israel learned in the wilderness. We are not called to hoard tomorrow’s provision or store up what was meant for today. Our daily task is to simply receive what He gives for this moment. We trust Him to provide what today requires, and we will trust Him again when tomorrow comes.
And just like my Sunday meal prep removes the stress of wondering what I will eat, there is peace in knowing that God has already prepared what we need for today.
Provide What This Moment Requires
Not for next year.
For today.
For the present moment.
And as Jesus teaches us, we just need to ask.
*For those of you who prayer walk, take time to ponder and pray ‘provide what this moment requires’. For your copy of this week’s screensaver click here. And to access all of my YouVersion Bible App devotional plans click here.