From the Pulpit: Daily bread versus anxiety

“Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” (Matthew 6:31-32)

When we pray for daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer we are praying against our tendency to be anxious about life. As parents, we have to be careful how our actions teach our children about life. Each day we work hard to make sure our children have the things they need such as: food to eat, clothes to wear, a good education, and appropriate friends. When we do this, we are teaching them that God does indeed provide daily bread for his children. But when we become excessively absorbed in our work, when we make poor financial decisions, when we get our family over involved in activities, then we are teaching them that God may not be completely trustworthy and we have to be anxious about the availability of daily bread in our lives. 

Trusting God in our daily walk is not always easy. Life presents us with so many things to worry about. But our children follow our lead. This is the reason we pray for daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer. Martin Luther explains in the Small Catechism what it means to pray for daily bread in this way: God indeed gives daily bread to all, even unbelievers, without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that he would help us to recognize this so that we would receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.

So, we don’t pray for daily bread because we have to. God is going to give us daily bread whether we pray for it or not. But as we pray for daily bread we are brought to the realization of all the things God does to make sure we have it. We should let our minds consider how he has instituted good government, commerce, world-wide trade, transportation, agriculture, manufacturing, and profitable business to make it possible for us to have the things we need each day. He has also given us jobs, schools, homes, and communities to make sure that we have life’s essentials.  

When we think through all that God has done for us, all that comes under the heading of what we pray for in “daily bread,” then we can take stock of God’s faithfulness. We can release some of our anxiety and turn more of our lives over in trust to God. This is just as true when things get difficult as when they are going well. And it is in those moments when we become the most worried about some aspect of our lives that we need to look carefully at what God gives us day by day. As we do so we will find the right moments to teach our children, by example, how to trust the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer. For as we learn to trust the Lord to give us our daily bread each day, then our children learn to trust God as well. They learn to trust Him for what they need. They learn to turn that trust into thanksgiving and praise for the Father of us all.

“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” (Psalm 95:1-3)