Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread

This is the most practical part of this prayer — the closest thing to most of our spontaneous prayers where we bring our daily needs to the Lord. These are the types of things Jesus tells us elsewhere not to worry about when He says, “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:31-33). If He said this, then why did He include this request in His prayer? Probably because He knows us so well.

He knows our weaknesses; He remembers that we are made out of the dust. Telling us not to worry about what to eat when our stomaches are growling is one thing; getting us to do it is another. This is one thing that happened when God became man: He took on our human frailty. He gets us. He knows what it is to walk in our shoes. So when He teaches His disciples how to pray, He includes a line about their basic needs, because He wants us to bring all our concerns to Him.

Is this the statement of one who is living in scarcity — someone who never has enough — someone who is always desperate? No. It is the statement of someone who is simply relying on the Lord for everything. This is someone who is not worried about their daily bread because they are in the company of a man who can feed a multitude from one boy’s lunch. So being in the company of the man who is all-powerful and owns everything means you are in the presence of abundance. So how can you want for anything?

This one hits close to home for me. I worry too much about stuff like this because I think I never have enough or I can’t do (or, more accurately, don’t want to do) what’s necessary to change that. I have finally identified this as sin. Not just a bad habit, but willful sin, because if I never have enough, I can excuse my irresponsibility and worse: disobedience. (“Well what can I do? I never have enough.”) But how can I stand anywhere in the same room with the God of the universe as my Father, and claim I don’t have enough?

Therefore, “Give us this day our daily bread” recognizes we are in the presence of one who always has more than enough, or as a mentor of mine used to say, “There’s always more where that came from.”