How to Pray, Week 4: Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

1. What does it say?

“Give” – We need something outside of us to supply sustenance. How much do we believe that we are the source of love and life for ourselves and others?

“Us Our” – This prayer for all of God’s children, for a community of people. This is communal prayer. We are praying for ourselves, but also for a community of people to be provided for, by God.

“This Day Our Daily” – This isn’t tomorrow’s bread or retirement bread. It’s today’s bread. Are you anxious for provision months away? This prayer challenges us to focus our prayers for today’s needs and come back to him daily.

“Bread” – Our most basic, daily needs are food and water, and God wants us to ask for our daily needs.

2. What is the backstory?

In Matthew’s gospel, this verse comes in the middle of the Lord’s prayer. This verse comes right after the part of the prayer that is totally focused on God and what he has done. This is the shift in the prayer that focuses on us and what we need.

Further out context – this is part of the Sermon on the Mount. This prayer comes amid teaching about the Kingdom of God and how to live life in the Kingdom.

3. What does it mean?

Whole-bible context: God provided manna in the desert during the Exodus. It was literally a daily provision of food from God to his people. God provides for our needs. Are you grateful and aware of his daily provision?

Jesus’ miraculous abilities are shown through providing food – think of the thousands he fed, and The Last Supper. Bread is a symbol of community, and a symbol of his body, broken for us.

4. What does it mean for you and for me?

God provides in all seasons of life – in hard and good seasons, through neighbors or friends – if I accept my neediness, then I will be able to accept God’s provision in my life through these various means. Life becomes a gift to receive, not a trial to endure.


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