The Daily Bread
“Owe u» thu day our daily bread,’”
Back of the loaf is the sru)wyfiowr
And hack of the flour the mill; And hack of the miU is the wheat, and the shower.
And the sun, and the Farter’s will.
Malibie 2>. BahcocL
E are half-way through the Lord’s Prayer and come now to the first request for anything for ourself. We have learned that God must always be put first, and that the honoring of his name, the coming of his kingdom, and the doing of his will are always to be thought about and sought for before any matter of our own.
Yet it is a great comfort to know that we may bring oiu: bodily wants to God in prayer. Throughout the Scriptures we are taught that nothing which concerns our life in any way is too small to be of interest to oiu: Father. While the definite prayer here is for bread, all our physical needs are included. In an exquisite passage in the same sermon of Jesus in which the [147]
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Lord’s Prayer is given, we are taught that our Father cares for the birds and provides for them, and clothes the flowers in their gorgeous beauty which lasts for only a day. Then we are taught that the same love which thus provides for the birds and the lilies will much more care for us. Nothing necessary for oiu: life is too small or too earthly to put into the heart of a prayer. This petition for daily bread, like all the sayings of Christ, is full of deep meaning. Every word has its rich suggestions. We ask Grod to give us bread. We thus recognize our dependence on him for it. It is not easy to offer this petition with real meaning when we have plenty in our hands and no fear of want. We can conceive of the very poor, with no bread, on the verge of starving, uttering the prayer and putting their whole heart into it. The bitter sense of need makes the cry a real one for them. But for those who have never felt a pang of actual hunger, and have never been without a store from which to draw for [148]
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to-morrow’*s provision, it is not easy to realize the sense of dependence which the petition implies. This is one of the words of Christ whose full meaning only experience can teach. Yet it is true that whatever abundance may be ours, we are actually dependent upon God for each day’s bread. The story of the forty years of the miracle of manna in the wilderness is but a parable of another miracle immeasurably greater — the providing of bread for all earth’s millions all the days of all the centuries. What we call the laws of nature are but our Father’s ordinary ways of working. The regularity of these laws is but the proof of divine faithfulness. Suppose that for a single year, or but for a week, God’s miracle of bread should cease from the earth, what would be the consequences? The imbroken continuity of God’s mercy of bread hinders our appreciation of its greatness and its meaning to us. This prayer implies, also, that all the bread of the world is God’s. **The earth is the Lord’s, [ 149 ]
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and the fulness thereof.^ The bread belongs to him, and what we need can become ours only through his gift to us. We may take it and use it without asking him for it, but, if we do, we take that to which we have no right. Even if the- food be on our table, ready to be eaten, it is not yet ours until we have asked God for it. Those who pray not, nor even think of God, seem to be fed, as well as the righteous, — sometimes more bountifully. God “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the imjust.’” But there is a difference. Those who ask God for their bread get it as his gift and with his blessing upon it, while those who take it without asking for it, get it, and may be fed, but they miss the blessing, and it is the blessing of God that maketh rich, that giveth value to anything we have. This suggests the true meaning and the fitness of the Christian custom — is it waning now? — of asking a blessing or” saying grace before a meal.
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The form of the prayer teaches the lesson of unselfishness. It is not “Give me but” Give us.*” We cannot come to God for ourself alone. We must ask bread for others, for all — even for our enemies, if we have enemies. Especially must we think of the needy, the destitute, asking God to give them bread. If we are sincere we must be ready also, so far as we have opportimity and so far as we are able, to help to answer our own prayer for others by sharing our plenty with those who lack.” Whoso hath the worlds goods, and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how doth the love of God abide in him ?^ One of the most beautiful commentaries on this teaching is in the account of the way the people of the first church lived together. After the day of Pentecost, in the glow of the new-bom love of the disciples, those who had abundance gave to those who were poor, so that none lacked. Only thus can any follower of Christ carry out the teaching of the Master. We must [161] tHht (2^oIDen (3titt of ptapet
be ready to share our bread with our brother
who lacks.
‘^ Botv thf head and pray That while thy brother starves to-day Thou may est not eat thy bread at ease; Pray that no health or wealth or peace May lull thy soul while the world lies Suffering, and claims thy sacrifice,**
There is a limitation in this petition. “Give us this day our daily bread.’” In the other form of the prayer, in Luke, the words vary somewhat, “Give us day by day our daily bread.*” In Matthew it is a prayer only for the one day, with no thought of to-morrow; in Luke it takes in other days, but only as they come, one day at a time. In both forms we are taught to pray for only the bread of one day. There is a deep lesson in this teaching. Life is not given to us by the year or the month, but by single days. Night is the horizon which bounds our vision; we see not the morrow, and we are to confine our thought to the little space included between [152] the rising and the setting of the sun. This does not forbid forethought — the Bible encoiuges wise and proper care for the future. But all we are authorized to ask God to give us at any time is simply enough for the present day. Even if in the evening our last crust be eaten and there be nothing in store for to-morrow, we need not be afraid, nor think that God has forgotten. When the morrow comes we may ask for the morrows own bread and know that God will hear us and answer our prayer in the right way.
Here again we are taught that wonderful lesson of living a day at a time — a lesson which runs through all the Bible. It would save us an immense amount of worry and anxiety if we could really learn this lesson. It is trying to carry to-morrow’s burden besides to-day’s that breaks people down. Anybody can do one day’s tasks in a day, or endure one day’s struggle; but that is enough for any one, all God intends one to carry.
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One c o a time! That ’s all it can be: No faster than that is the hardest fate; And days have their limits, however we Begin them too early and stretch them late.
“One day at a time!
It ’s a wholesome rhyme — A good one to live by:
A day at a time.
‘One day at a time! A burden too great
To be borne for two can be borne for one;
Who knows what will enter to-morrows gate f
While yet we are speaking all may be done,
One day at a time!
It s a wholesome rhyme — A good one to live by:
A day at a time,
One day at a time! But a single day. Whatever its load, whatever its length; And there s a bit of precious Scripture to say That according to each shall be our strength, [154]
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‘^ A day at a time!
It s a wholesome rhyme — A good one to Uve by:
A day at a time.”
There is a special suggestiveness in the word “our’’ — “Give us our bread.*” It is God’s bread first; it becomes ours through God’s gift to us. But there is something else also implied — the bread must be earned by us before it is properly ours. It is clearly taught in the Scriptures that every one must work for his own bread. This was the law of the unfallen state in Eden, and it is no less the law in the kingdom of redemption. Of course this does not apply to little children who are too young to work, to the old who are too feeble, or to the sick who are incapacitated for work — all such come under God’s special care and will not be forgotten. But all who are able to work must do so, or the bread they eat is not rightfully their own. “If any will not work,” says the Apostle Paul, “neither let him eat.”
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The bread must be earned also in ways which have the divine approval. If a man steals his. daily bread it is not his — he has robbed God and robbed his fellow-man, and there is a curse on what he eats. Money got in fraudulent transactions, or by any dishonest means, has not been righteously earned, and Gods blessing cannot be invoked upon it by any form of prayer. Imagine a gambler, for example, living on the fruits of his sin, asking God to give him, with a blessing, the bread on his table! Imagine a saloon-keeper, who has earned his bread by selling strong drinks which have brought ruin upon lives and homes, asking God to bless his daily bread! God’s bread can become ours with a blessing only when it is earned in honest ways. While, therefore, we toil to earn our bread we must keep ourself unspotted from the world.
“I watched the sparrows flitting here and there, In quest of food about* the ndry street: Such nameless foae as seems to sparrows sweet They sought with greedy clamor everywhere, [156]
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“Yet ‘ndd their strife I noted with what care
They held upraised their Jluttering pinions Jleet, They trod the mire with soiled and grimy feet, But kept their wings unsullied in the air,
‘^ /, too, like thee, 0 sparrow, toil to gain
My scanty portion from Ufes sordid ways. Like thee, too, often hungry, I am fain
To strive with greed and envy all my days. Would that I, too, like thee, might learn the grace To keep my souTs uplifted wings from stain!”
There is yet another limitation in the petition, in the word “daily.*” It means enough for the day — seasonable provision. It is not a prayer, therefore, for a large supply. We are not authorized to ask for luxuries. We need not infer that it is wrong for us to have more than our actual need for the day requires; but this is all that is promised. St. Paul says, “My GoA, shall fulfil every need of yom«, according to his riches in glory.*” This assures us of a very abundant provision. Our Father does everything generously. He is never niggardly or mean in caring [167]
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for his children. Ofttimes he supplies their wants most abundantly, giving them far more than they need. But we are taught to ask only for enough, and we cannot claim the promise for more.
The prayer would seem also to forbid extravagance. Gods bread never should be wasted. There is a story of Carlyle that one day he was seen going into the middle of the street to pick up a crust of bread which he saw lying there in the dust. Taking it in his hand gently, as if it had been something very valuable, he brushed off the clay and then carried it to the curb and laid it down, saying: “I was taught by my mother never to waste anything, least of all bread, the most precious of all God’s gifts. This crust of bread may feed a hungry dog or a little sparrow.’^ Our Lord himself taught the same lesson, when, after working his great miracle of the loaves, and feeding thousands, he directed that all the fragments be gathered up, that nothing should be lost. The bread we get [158] as Grods gift is sacred, and not a crumb of it should be wasted, either recklessly or in useless extravagance.
We are taught to limit our wants, but we are to ask with confidence for all we may need for jthe day. Days differ. Some bring their heavy burdens, their great wants, their keen sorrows, their crosses. Others have fewer needs. God knows our days, and he is better able than we are to measure our real wants for each day. We may safely, therefore, ask for daily bread, and let him choose what to give us. He will never give too little.
If a to-morrow, who can tell 9
To sleep, or wake?
To work, or rest?
What he deems best,
God gives, we take, Knowing he doeth all things well!’**
It is surely a great comfort to know that in
this world each one of us is thought about and
cared for by our Father, who loves us with an
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infinite and everlasting love. He does not think of us merely as a vast, uncounted family, but as individuals. “He telleth the number of the stars; he giveth them all their names.*” If one star should go out, God would miss its shining. He knows the birds and misses the one that drops from the flock.
“No moment passes hut he hums
How many there should he.
One huildeth high, another low,
With just a bircTs light care;
If only one, perchance, doth fall,
God knoweth when and where”
More surely and with more loving thought does he know his own children. He knows our names. Each one of us is personally dear to him. The very hairs of our head are all numbered. Not one of us is ever forgotten in heaven for a moment. We can be in no place or condition in which our circumstances are not well known to God. “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.’’ [160]
This teaching makes the law of life very simple. We are not to live to get food, but are to live, first and last, as God’s, and for God. We have nothing to do directly with the supplying of our own wants; that is God’s matter, not ours. There are but two things we need to concern omelf about. First, we should do our duty — the will of God, as it is made known to us day by day. Then we should trust God for the supply of our bodily and temporal wants. Those who have learned to live thus have found the way of peace. Over-anxiety is sin. It dishonors God, for it is bred of doubt; it hurts our own life, hindering our spiritual growth, marring the beauty of our character and blurring our witness for God to others. If we faithfully do God’s will, as revealed to us, and then trust God perfectly, the peace of God will guard our hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus.
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