Why do we pray 'Give us today our daily bread'?

What does the prayer “give us our daily bread” mean when we have the bread for the day? Not only for today but for tomorrow and many days more.
This may look as a meaningless prayer to people who don’t know hunger and starvation. It doesn't make sense to people who always had more than what they need. This prayer may look meaningless for those who have the power to control their lives.
Still, the Lord taught us to pray “give us our daily bread.”
Don’t dismiss this as a prayer for the first century Christians who were poorer than us in many ways. Among them were really rich people. There were people who had food and drinks to host huge parties. For example, the sisters of Lazarus, Simon the leper and the list goes on. All these who were rich enough to throw lavish parties in honour of Jesus were also expected to pray this prayer.
Rich and poor pray this prayer. Those who are full pray this as though they are hungry, because this prayer is a prayer of humble admission. It’s the humble admission that God is the provider of the food that I had, the food that I have and the food that am going to have. By praying these words we admit that we don’t have any control on our lives, but we depend totally on him.
So rich or poor despite the holding capacity of our store rooms and our refrigerators, we ought to pray in humble admission, “our Heavenly Father, give us today our daily bread.”

The Days of Antipas

"The days of Antipas" means not only a period of persecution but a period of perseverance as well. It signifies the days of believers who withstood the pressures from outside to surrender. In the church in the city of Pergamum, there were some people who remained faithful to Jesus in the days of severe persecution. Apostle John calls these days of persecution "the day of Antipas" (Rev. 2:13). The Antipas mentioned here should not be confused with Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great. Herod Antipas was a wicked ruler whom Jesus called "fox". He is the one who offered the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter to his daughter. He might have tried to kill Jesus and presided over Jesus' trial. However, the Antipas mentioned in Revelation 2 was the bishop of Pergamum, a pagan city in the first century AD. The name means "against all." There is a great con trast in the names -- Herod was against all that was good, however, Antipas th...

The Lonely Jungle Babbler

Every day it comes, and pecks at the glass panel of the window of my study. It is a Jungle Babbler, a very common bird in the Indian subcontinent. It dances flying up and down and fluttering its wings. Sometimes, three or four times a day it repeats this ritual. I thought it is trying to get into my room or fly through as it can see the other side. But why does it keep coming, can't it make out after three or four attempts that it can't fly through? I told my Neighbor, whom I consider an expert on birds, about this winged visitor. She explained that the babbler is pecking at its own reflection, thinking that it is another bird. I thought of verifying her suggestion. The following day I kept the window half open, drawing one panel fully open. The babbler came as usual. Perched on the window, looked into my room through the open panel but did not enter the room or peck. But it moved to the side of the window where there is glass and started pecking on the gl...

The Conquering Grace

Grace of God is hard to define. When I was making baby steps in Christian faith, mentors told me that ‘grace is unmerited favor.’ I found that helpful. But as I continued to experience God’s grace as I grew, I found that this definition is inadequate to express all that God does in my life. Now, I have come to realize that grace of God is such a thing that eludes any definition. Grace, as I understand now is what God alone and no human can do in our lives. It comes in various colors, shapes and sizes! John, the gospel writer seems to have understood the multifarious nature of grace that he talks about the ‘fullness of grace’ and ‘grace upon grace’ (John 1:17). Or the New Living Translation puts it: ‘From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.’ These expressions mean that grace is not just one-sided reality but a multi-faceted reality. Its fullness is beyond our comprehension just as God evades our understanding. One of the rare but ...

Paulson Post

Search This Blog