Give Us This Day

I'm returning to the Lord's Prayer. I feel that I need to give some time to the second half, since I devoted quite a few words to the first part. I'm going to write an entry on each of phrases in order, so today is "Give us this day our daily bread".

Why Ask?
I posed this stumper to my Sunday school class: Matthew 6:8 says "your Father knows what you need before you ask him.", so why ask?

Further down in verse 25, Jesus says "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"

Again, Jesus tells us (implicitly) that the Father will provide for us. Even so, it's pretty clear that we should ask. After all, Jesus teaches us to ask God for one of our most basic needs.

I'm not going to pretend to have the keys to unlock the mysteries of prayer and it seems that God delights in paradoxes, but I've come up with some answers to "why ask?" that make sense, at least to me. I'd love to hear what you think, as I'm sure my answers are incomplete.

What is the context?
One thing I've been discovering is that the Lord's Prayer doesn't exist in a vacuum. It is part of a larger sermon (at least in Matthew) - the Sermon on th Mount. This is important because the sermon isn't just random bits and pieces thrown together. It is a coherent object with thematic ties. Certainly, we can take it apart (like we're doing now), but read as a single entity it comes together as more than the sum of its parts. I recommend you read it in a single sitting sometime and see if you agree.

Anyway, the reason I say that is Matthew 6:33 (following on from the quote above) says "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

"All these things" refers to food,clothes and water - the necessities of life. In other words, "Our daily bread". I can't help but think that this is intended as a direct parallel to the Lord's Prayer. "Seek first" correlates to "hallowed be/kingdom come/will be done" and "all these things" parallels "daily bread/forgive us/lead us/deliver us". All this to say that asking for our needs is a matter of our spiritual alignment - of seeking first the kingdom of God.

The steward and the King
Helping us to align ourselves Godward is an acknowledgement of His provision. It is not so much a request as it is an admission: "God, you provide my daily bread." We walk down a dangerous path when we think that WE are responsible for our provision, our success, our salvation. To be sure, we do have responsibilities - but the responsibilities are those of a steward, we are to be wise with what we are GIVEN ("Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights..." James 1:17) We can take the mantle of ultimate provider, but that is a heavy weight and one that God says He will carry. And even then, I have a suspicion that we would be play-acting.

When we ask God for something (food, healing, jobs, blessing...), we are admiting that we can't do/provide these things ourselves. We need help and our help comes from the Father. This has a few very important implications: 1) We glorify God and not ourselves. We come to a place of humility and give God the glory for what he has done. 2) We don't carry the burden of success. God's measurements are on a different scale. Our responsibility is for stewardship and obedience with what we've been given. If we fulfill our responsibility, we need not worry about the results - that is God's job.

In this corner, from parts unknown...
Now I'm getting into a much harder question than "why ask". I'm wandering into "Why isn't my prayer answered?" This is a question I will wrestle with next post. But first I've got to put on my tights and mask. Will I get the big gold belt or the smack down? Stay tuned...