Our daily provision of bread, the bread that we need for every day, give it to us today, but we’re not asking for a month’s supply, we’re not asking to be set up for life, it’s not a prayer for the whole of one’s life, it’s a prayer for the moment. There’s something about this prayer Jesus wants us to focus on in the moment and to not look farther than just today, that God provision would meet me today. Jesus wants us to imagine ourselves as being so of the moment that all I want to focus on is just what I need right now, today. There’s something about keeping my trust in God, real, present and focused, limited in that way, a provision of what you need to exist and survive without.
Only gather what you need for each day, because some people get as much as they can and some people don’t gather enough for what they would need for one day. The moment that you start giving people more than they need for the moment, they start to trust in their own resources and not on God. There’s something instructive about only living and not taking for granted what is just for this moment in this day. But the bread I’m going to have tomorrow requires that I make a few phone calls today, if you read the Bible as a behavior manual, you’re going to be like, so which is it, do I just plan and trust God day-by-day and that’s the right way or do I pull Proverbs and make phone calls and plan for next mouth or 10 years from now and that’s in the Bible too.
When you’re in a time of nothing, all you can do is trust you’re going to have what you need, reconcile yourself, that all you can do is trust God for this day, but if your in a situation where you have stability and there you need to make your plans to be wise and responsible so that you have enough for yourself and to share with the poor. There’s something about the human psyche, that when we start to have more than what we need for the moment, it lulls us into complacency and self-orientation. What transforms society in Jesus’ ideal, is knowing God as the utterly reliable and endlessly generous provider of all good on whom all creatures are totally dependent.
The kind of trust in God’s provision that Jesus envisages here, is adequate provision for material needs, not luxury, but day-by-day provision, not wealth stored up, that’s all that’s asked for here. It puts the disciples of Jesus in the position of a beggar who depends day-by-day on the generosity of others or it puts them in the position of the day laborer, agricultural workers who had the least security, employed one day at a time, never earning more than the next day’s meal. Jesus requires of all disciples that sort of radical trust, that for the destitute, is the only sort of available, there’s value to Jesus, that his disciples who find themselves in a place of just living day-by-day, Jesus wants every one of his disciples to imagine that they are a day laborer, Jesus actually believes that’s the reality that we’re all living in anyway.
Your existence today isn’t the result of all your planning, because even your planning itself and the ability to plan and to have a stable enough life and environment to make your plans is all a gift that you didn’t create for yourself. Jesus isn’t saying don’t make plans beyond today’s bread, it’s a request to God, give me what I need for today and it’s training your mind to see that every day’s existence comes as a gift, even if I planned for today’s meal a month ago, ultimately, it’s a gift from God in this moment. Jesus wants all of his followers to imagine that their moment-by-moment existence is not something that they created for themselves, but that they receive as a gift, the bread of the moment. I can count on the pension and even then Jesus wants his disciples to cultivate the mindset of a beggar or a day laborer, there’s something about that mindset that will keep you in a space that Jesus wants his followers to never leave, which is a radical in the moment trust and dependence on the generosity of God. Jesus himself was shaped and this articulates a big priority in how Jesus lived and saw the world, he invites us into radical trust for provision.
Only gather what you need for each day, because some people get as much as they can and some people don’t gather enough for what they would need for one day. The moment that you start giving people more than they need for the moment, they start to trust in their own resources and not on God. There’s something instructive about only living and not taking for granted what is just for this moment in this day. But the bread I’m going to have tomorrow requires that I make a few phone calls today, if you read the Bible as a behavior manual, you’re going to be like, so which is it, do I just plan and trust God day-by-day and that’s the right way or do I pull Proverbs and make phone calls and plan for next mouth or 10 years from now and that’s in the Bible too.
When you’re in a time of nothing, all you can do is trust you’re going to have what you need, reconcile yourself, that all you can do is trust God for this day, but if your in a situation where you have stability and there you need to make your plans to be wise and responsible so that you have enough for yourself and to share with the poor. There’s something about the human psyche, that when we start to have more than what we need for the moment, it lulls us into complacency and self-orientation. What transforms society in Jesus’ ideal, is knowing God as the utterly reliable and endlessly generous provider of all good on whom all creatures are totally dependent.
The kind of trust in God’s provision that Jesus envisages here, is adequate provision for material needs, not luxury, but day-by-day provision, not wealth stored up, that’s all that’s asked for here. It puts the disciples of Jesus in the position of a beggar who depends day-by-day on the generosity of others or it puts them in the position of the day laborer, agricultural workers who had the least security, employed one day at a time, never earning more than the next day’s meal. Jesus requires of all disciples that sort of radical trust, that for the destitute, is the only sort of available, there’s value to Jesus, that his disciples who find themselves in a place of just living day-by-day, Jesus wants every one of his disciples to imagine that they are a day laborer, Jesus actually believes that’s the reality that we’re all living in anyway.
Your existence today isn’t the result of all your planning, because even your planning itself and the ability to plan and to have a stable enough life and environment to make your plans is all a gift that you didn’t create for yourself. Jesus isn’t saying don’t make plans beyond today’s bread, it’s a request to God, give me what I need for today and it’s training your mind to see that every day’s existence comes as a gift, even if I planned for today’s meal a month ago, ultimately, it’s a gift from God in this moment. Jesus wants all of his followers to imagine that their moment-by-moment existence is not something that they created for themselves, but that they receive as a gift, the bread of the moment. I can count on the pension and even then Jesus wants his disciples to cultivate the mindset of a beggar or a day laborer, there’s something about that mindset that will keep you in a space that Jesus wants his followers to never leave, which is a radical in the moment trust and dependence on the generosity of God. Jesus himself was shaped and this articulates a big priority in how Jesus lived and saw the world, he invites us into radical trust for provision.
