Our Lord and His PrayerНамуна

What is your favorite kind of bread? Every culture has some kind of bread in their diet. Mine is the cheddar bread my wife makes. If I could eat it every day, I would. But bread is not exactly the point of this part of The Lord’s Prayer.

As He has throughout the prayer, Jesus points back to a miraculous story in Jewish history.

There is a HUGE miracle in a particular story in Exodus (thousands of tummies filled with miracle bread). BUT it starts, like hunger often does, with some grumbling. It wasn’t stomachs that were grumbling, though, it was the former slaves who were journeying through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. And by “grumbling,” I mean bitter, hostile, aggressive complaining.

Just like God hears our stomachs when they get rumbly, God heard the grumbles of the Israelites: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them…’” (Exodus 16:4).

“Test” means to teach the true nature of something, and God is teaching them the true nature of habitual dependence. God was teaching them to depend on Him for their needs.

Make no mistake, God could have given the Israelites all the bread they needed for their entire wilderness wandering. But He didn’t. He gave them only enough for the day so that they, and we, would have a constant reminder…

…of Who provides for us. Sure, they gathered, measured, and prepared the manna, BUT they were incapable of providing the manna. Like so many things in the kingdom of God, there was a partnership happening, but the reality was and is that God is the majority partner.

…that there are some things we cannot store up for tomorrow. There are some things that CAN be wisely saved for tomorrow, but not everything. Mercy is a great example. Scripture teaches that the lovingkindness of the Lord is new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). Why? Because last month’s lovingkindness will not suffice for today’s troubles. Last week’s compassion will not address today’s needs. Yesterday’s mercy is not an adequate response to today’s sins and shortcomings. God gives us TODAY what we need.

May you learn the true nature of habitual dependence on God for those things from yesterday that cannot be stored up, or lived on today, but can only be provided today by Your heavenly Father.