DAILY BYTE
The third particular point in this line of the Lord’s Prayer I’d like us to reflect on is the word ‘us’. Give us this day our daily bread.
The focus of the Lord’s Prayer is never selfish. God’s concern for our wellbeing, for the meeting of our essential needs, is not a concern for us alone, but a concern for all people. It’s a wide concern that we’re called to share when we pray, “Give us...”
People often say, “If God provides daily for people’s wellbeing, why is it that about 30 000 people die of starvation every day?”
To which the simple response is this, “Is there enough food in the world to feed everyone every day?” And the answer to that question is ‘Yes there is.’ Clearly the problem does not lie with an inadequate supply, but rather with inadequate, unfair and unjust distribution. Clearly, the problem does not lie with God, but with people, and our failure to truly understand what it means to be bound together in a common humanity.
So when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are effectively offering ourselves in collaboration with the cause of justice and fairness and equality. And through us, God’s provision into the lives of others can flow.
There’s an ancient Jewish legend about two brothers who were farmers. They lived next to each other on adjacent farms. The one brother was married with children, the other was single.
When it was time for the harvest, each brother gathered the grain from his own fields and placed it in his barn. But then the unmarried brother thought to himself, “I am single with few responsibilities, whereas my brother has many mouths to feed. Tonight I’ll take some of the grain in my barn and secretly put it in his barn.”
At the same time the married brother was thinking to himself, “I have the joy of a wife and children, whereas my brother has nothing other than his harvest. Tonight, I’ll take some of my grain and leave it in his barn.”
That night, as each of those brothers carried out their plans in secret, they met. And according to the legend, the place they met was the very place where the Temple was later built, because that’s where heaven was nearest the earth.
It is this kind of awareness of others, and sacrificial commitment to their wellbeing, that will enable us to be used mightily by God in God’s great work of providence in the lives of others. What a privilege, and joy, and delight for our lives to find such rich meaning and significance, and to become the very place where heaven touches earth.
PRAY AS YOU GO
Thank you Lord for all those who have given generously of themselves for my benefit. I remember by name before you today those who have invested in me with great sacrifices of love.... May the witness of their lives, and the inspiration of their generosity be an example and encouragement to me in the way in which I live my life. Today Lord, show me one person whom I can love in a similar way. Amen.
SCRIPTURE READING
1 John 3:16-18
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?
Little children, let us love, not in words or speech, but in truth and action.
