By David Faust
What is your favorite kind of bread? In Amman, Jordan, I ate tasty flatbread baked by a street vendor over a charcoal fire. In a grass hut in Ethiopia, a gracious family served me bread made from grain grown and ground by their own hands. I have devoured hearty rye bread in Germany, buttery croissants in France, and mouth-watering cornbread in Kentucky, but nothing beats the homemade loaves my mother served warm from the oven, slathered with pats of butter.
Bread represents more than food. Workers who provide for their families are “breadwinners.” Clever inventions are “the greatest thing since sliced bread,” while poorly conceived ideas are “half-baked.” A good-paying job is your “bread and butter.” Friends build relationships by “breaking bread together.”
Bread even found its way into a classic Abbott and Costello comedy routine. Abbott got a job as a loafer in a bakery. (He needed dough, so he kneaded dough.) But Costello wondered, Why do you get paid for loafing?
Jesus said to pray, “Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11, New International Version), and every part of that sentence has something to teach us.
Give Us
Food is a gift. God “has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy” (Acts 14:17). Mealtime prayers should be more than an empty ritual. Large or small, every meal can be “received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:5).
The verb give reminds us of our dependency on God, while the plural pronoun us challenges our selfish individualism by reminding us about the needs of others. When we give food to the hungry, God answers someone else’s prayer for daily bread.
This Day
In Haiti, a missionary told me, “Americans pray for daily bread, but they have enough food in their kitchens to last a month. Here, people literally have to trust God to provide each day.”
Christ-followers shouldn’t worry about the future and run around in a fearful flurry, as if our most important goal is acquiring food, drink, and clothing. Eugene Peterson paraphrased Jesus’ words like this:
What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met (Matthew 6:31-32, The Message).
Daily Sustenance
We need bread, not cake—basics, not luxuries. During the Israelites’ wilderness journey, God fed them manna—a word that sounds like the Hebrew for “What is it?” Thin flakes of this nutritious food appeared on the ground each morning. It was “white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:14, 31, NIV).
God provides our daily needs. And the weekly bread we consume at the Lord’s Table reminds us of Jesus’ words: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:51).
Next week: “Forgive Us Our Debts”
David Faust serves as contributing editor of Christian Standard and senior associate minister with East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of 1 & 2 Thessalonians: Unquenchable Faith.
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