A Thought For The Week Of June 26, 2017

"Give us today our daily bread." (Matthew 6:11) These are six very simple words that could actually be summed up in just one word: trust. "Give us today our daily bread." The words are familiar.As Christians, we repeat them a lot. They come from the Lord's Prayer. And in the midst of that prayer, Jesus teaches that we should find time to as God to bless not all of our tomorrows, and not even just tomorrow, but just to make provision for today. The verse refers specifically to "our daily bread," which makes us think immediately of food, but I find myself thinking that Jesus meant more than just "give us enough food so that we can eat today." Bread, after all, is a pretty common image in the Bible. It can refer to the word of God - both the Bible itself and to the Word made Flesh, which is, of course, Jesus. We should remember that Jesus actually called himself "the bread of life." It seems to be more than just food that Jesus is speaking of in this verse. He's referring to all that nourishes us in any way - both physically and spiritually. It could be "put food on my table today," but it could also mean "keep me faithful in reading or studying my Bible today," or "help me to remember that Jesus is with me today." After all, we could find ourselves having any of these needs on any given day. There are a lot of distractions in this world that can pull us away from both the Bible and Jesus. But however you define "bread," there's no doubt at all that Jesus is calling us to trust God with the future in this verse. We don't need to worry about the future. We can take life one day at a time and trust God to lead us to where we need to go. It's not that we shouldn't prepare for the future, but we certainly shouldn't become obsessed with planning for it, because worrying about the future accomplishes nothing. I've always been a little suspicious of multi-year "plans" for a congregation, for example. Planning too far ahead can create an idol. We have a plan we've committed to seeing through and we're going to stick to it no matter what - even if it becomes painfully obvious that the plan isn't serving either God or the church very well. One day at a time seems to be what Jesus teaches.