Our Daily Bread

Jesus teaches us to pray for our basic needs. Praying that way can both simplify and sanctify our lives. Today, Sinclair Ferguson considers how the Lord’s Prayer directs us to ask God for strength to honor Him and do His will.

We’ve been thinking this week about the Lord’s Prayer on Things Unseen, and I sympathize with you if perhaps you’ve groaned a little inwardly and thought, “Not again.” If you hear your minister or pastor say, “We’re starting a new series today on the Lord’s Prayer,” you may think, “Is there anything about this prayer I don’t know?” But sometimes knowing is not really our problem. Our problem is applying what we know.

The Kellogg Company once ran what I thought was a great TV advert for their Corn Flakes. In it, a young man sits down for breakfast and has a bowl of Corn Flakes, and then he looks up and says to the camera, “I’d forgotten how good they tasted.” Now, Things Unseen doesn’t do product placement, but I remember having breakfast once in a hotel and thinking, “I think I’m going to try the Corn Flakes,” not having had them for years, and the words of the TV advert came back to me. I suppose I’d had hundreds and hundreds of bowls of Corn Flakes growing up in days when there were only maybe half a dozen different breakfast cereals. And yes, actually, I had forgotten how good they tasted. Well, maybe these apparently disconnected comments are more to the point than you might think, because maybe you’ve forgotten how good the Lord’s Prayer tastes. And perhaps, too, you’ve forgotten to pray.

Speaking of taste, “Give us this day our daily bread.” There’s been a lot of discussion over the years about this phrase, “daily bread.” Sometimes it’s been applied to the Eucharist. And then scholars discuss the various possible meanings of the word “daily.” Does that mean today’s bread or does it mean bread for tomorrow? To be honest, I don’t think all that need bother us very much. What we are asking for here is for the provision we need for each day so that we can have the daily strength to honor God’s name, to serve His kingdom, and to do His will.

And there are many kinds of applications to these words, don’t you think? We could underline the word “us.” It’s not just me. I could be the hands that answer that prayer for someone else. Or we might remind ourselves that our bread doesn’t actually come from the supermarket where we bought it; it comes from the fields that God has providentially superintended, and we actually are dependent on Him. Or, if this prayer is a general one for what sustains life, we might remind ourselves that we can eat and drink and yet not be nourished or strengthened by what we eat or drink. Our bodies are actually ultimately dependent on the Lord in order to function well in that way.

And then perhaps this: perhaps your daily bread—the nourishment your body needs in order for you to live—perhaps your daily bread includes the medicines you take. Do you ever ask the Lord to sanctify them? Are you ever thankful for them? Do you ever pray that they’ll be instruments of health for you?

And then, of course, there’s this application that you’ve probably heard a dozen times, but maybe never really taken to heart: Jesus teaches us to pray for basic things, and praying that way should simplify life. It should help us to focus on what we need and only on what we need. And here’s a further important application. This prayer reminds me of Proverbs 17:1: “Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting and strife.” Do we really need all that we actually want? That’s part of the challenge of this prayer and praying it daily: “Give us this day our daily bread.” It helps us to focus. It helps us to simplify. It helps us to live a day at a time. It helps us in so many different ways to live an uncomplicated life.

And I suspect there’s a connection between simplification and sanctification. Sin complicates our lives, it complicates our desires, and it confuses our vision. So the petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” helps to reorder our lives daily so that we live in a sweet simplicity before the face of God. It uncomplicates us, and that’s one of the things that makes our lives reflect the Lord Jesus to others. Did I say a few minutes ago, “The Lord’s Prayer might make us groan, ‘Oh, not again’”? But I feel for myself how much I need these words again and again because they teach us how to pray and they teach us how to live. And I hope you feel the same way as I do.