Give Us This Day

So often we pray the Lord's Prayer (or rather we SAY the Lord's Prayer) without any concentration on what is coming out of our mouth. As I have mentioned in previous posts, the Lord's Prayer is more of a road map of prayer for me. It helps me to direct my concentration and focus on the Lord during my prayer time. I often use each line as a header, as I have taught in previous posts.

Recently, as I was praying through the Lord's Prayer, I came to the line “Give us this day...” I recognized it as a petition all by itself. Not a prayer for bread or food, but a prayer for accepting this day as it comes. I began to think of Scriptures referring to Today: But exhort one another daily, while it is called To Day” Heb 3:13. And Jesus gave us commandment not to worry about tomorrow: Take therefore no thought for tomorrow: for tomorrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matt 6:34

My thoughts were drawn to a verse of Scripture I have often shied away from: This is the day that the LORD has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24. In the past, I have been superstitious in that whenever I had declared this Scripture, it seemed that I was tested on it. But as I was praying this line – give us this day, I realized that it was casting all my cares (fears, superstitions, worries, anxieties) on the LORD and recognizing that THIS IS THE DAY HE HAS MADE and we are believing in Him to give us THIS DAY everything we have need to make it through the day.

I'm sure that I'll never pray through this line again the same way as in the past.