Give us this day our daily bread

Still Waters

The Lord’s Prayer is a beautiful and powerful prayer. Most Christians pray it every Sunday in Church.

In this blog I just want to focus on “Give us this day our daily bread.”

The first thing I would suggest is that it would be helpful to pray this prayer every day, not just once a week.

Why? Because if you take it literally, you area are asking for bread for “this day.”

I suppose if you want bread for a whole week or a whole lifetime, you could say, “Give me all the bread I need this week, or give me bread every day for the rest of my life.”

Then again, Jesus said, “Think not on the morrow for the morrow will take care of itself. Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof.”

Thinking about the future causes anxiety.

Reaching in for the flower

Give me this day my daily bread. That’s enough. Pray it every day.

So what is daily bread?

For simplicity let’s say food. Or beyond that the sustenance that I need to maintain my existence, function, and grow.

But is it only physical sustenance that is being talked about?

We need several types of bread. We need to feed ourselves physically, yes!

But we also need to feed ourselves emotionally and intelectually.

We need emotional bread. Love. The love of friends, the love of family. Most important, the love of God. We need to feel loved and to love ourselves. Only when one is nurtured in love can one love others as one loves oneself.

So we need the daily bread of love.

Flowering

We also need intellectual bread. Ideas which help the mind to grow. Gradually mastering new concepts and  gaining new insights, which as we put them into practice lead to wisdom.

We need the daily bread of truth.

Each day we need to feed our body, our emotions, and our minds.

There is one more kind of bread we need. In the Unification Church we called this vitality elements.

When we are physically nourished we act.

When we feel love we want to give love.

When we are inspired we want to put that inspiration into practice and share it.

I am talking about praxis.

It is beneficial to use one’s physical, emotional, and intellectual energy to serve others.

Doing good deeds creates vitality within oneself that helps the spirit to grow.

Road to the Temple of Peace

God is the answerer of prayer. If we pray every day for God to give us our daily bread, God will provide us with physical, emotional and mental food.

God will provide us with opportunities to help others.

If we do so we grow spiritually each day.

In such a way we can help God’s Kingdom to come on Earth as it is in Heaven.