The Lord’s Prayer is one of the most memorized passages of Scripture. I can’t even count how many times I’ve read it in devotions or prayed it out loud in gatherings. I recently decided to start reading through the New Testament again from the beginning and in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, the authors share this prayer. In Matthew 6, the prayer is part of the beatitudes and is preceded by Jesus’ teaching to pray in secret rather than be like the hypocrites who pray loudly and openly to be praised by men. In verses 7-8 Jesus also teaches not to use repetitious words thinking that more words will make God hear us, but He explains that the Father already knows what we need before we ask. Rather He presents this simple prayer, which we know of as the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13):

“Pray, then, in this way:

Our Father who is in heaven,

Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]”

Luke’s account of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11:2-4 is more concise, but the essence is still the same. When we pray it is to the Father who is holy and in heaven. Our desire should be for His kingdom to come and for His will, not ours, to be done. We also ought to pray for our DAILY bread (to this point I will come back to). Then we are instructed to ask for forgiveness, and notice the passage says “as we also have forgiven our debtors.” We ask for forgiveness once we’ve already forgiven others. Matthew 6:14-15 expounds on this point: “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” That part of the passage is a blog post topic for another time, but it’s important to remember. Then lastly we ought to pray to be kept from temptation and delivered from evil because we all fall into sin and the enemy would like nothing more than to draw us away from the Lord.

Back in April, I wrote a blog post called “The Measure of Contentment” where I shared about my sin of pride and how I was placing my contentment in the wrong things. I was called by the Lord to follow a path, but I made the task my focus rather than the Lord. It led me on a journey (which I’m still on) of what it means to be content in the Lord. I know the Lord promised success if I followed Him, but I began to realize that His timing and mine weren’t the same. The worldly idea of success would creep in, and I would wonder when I could start providing again. I would compare myself to others and wonder why I couldn’t be more like them. But when I recently read the Lord’s Prayer again, it clicked: “Give us this day our DAILY bread.” The world says to make as much money as possible and save it, invest it, etc. We tend to get to know people by what they do and judge (whether we consciously realize it or not) by what others earn for a living. But the prayer that Jesus shared as the way to pray didn’t say, “Pray for loads of wealth for the future.” Rather He said to pray “Give us this day our daily bread.” Is it wrong to be wealthy? No! The Lord can and has used wealthy people to further His kingdom. But the reality is we aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. James 4:13-15 says,

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’”

Only the Lord knows what will happen in our lives, and Jesus is teaching His disciples, who will become the leaders of the church, to pray for the Father to give them what they need for each day. Not for the next week or next year or next ten years. Today. And that’s enough. When I let this sink in, my prayer started to change from “Lord, help me to provide for my family” to “Lord, I pray that you will provide for what we need today.” And He has! I don’t have to worry about the future because the Lord already knows. I just have to be faithful to do what He’s called me to do and not compare what He’s given me to the tasks He’s given to someone else. We are a BODY of believers who all have been called to do different things for the Lord, as Paul talks about 1 Corinthians 12. The body is not made up of the same part (which would look monstrous) but multiple, unique parts with different functions. The beauty is that when we are obedient and content in Him, all the parts of the body function properly, and we become the church– the bride –that He has called us to be.

The world is going to call us foolish for not saving up as much money as possible or for not diving into every social media outlet to gain followers, customers, or people to approve of us and what we do. And to the world we are foolish—and we should be honored by that:

“For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.’

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

When Jesus tells His disciples to pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” He is telling them to live in faith day-by-day, confident that the Father already knows what we need. And the “daily bread” is not going to look the same for everyone, and that’s alright. Our eyes shouldn’t be roaming around (or scrolling through people’s pages) to see what others’ “daily bread” looks like. We are accountable for our own faith and for our own fruit before the Lord God, and in truth, praying for our “daily bread” is freeing because that means we know that the Lord will take care of us each day until He calls us home to be with Him. Each day may look different from the last, but He already knows what we need. And that is enough.

©Lauren Demuth