My wife had given me a copy of Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller.
(Excellent book, which I highly recommend.) I recently finished it and have been
pondering on morsels from it since.
During one of my prayer times, I found myself reflecting on Tim’s ideas
while praying through the Lord’s Prayer.
Through working on connecting Tim’s ideas with this line of Jesus’
prayer, I think I’ve uncovered something I’ve been missing.
Tim tells the story of Creation by showing us how God
created the world and then empowers mankind to finish the details. God does this by setting us in a garden and
charging us to create a great city. This
requires work. Tim explains how every
task that is necessary and beneficial to a flourishing society is following in
the mission that God has for mankind.
When we work at these tasks, we labor with God. When we enjoy the fruits of these tasks, we
owe thanks to God and fellow man.
Why would Jesus ask us to pray for our daily bread?
Yes, Jesus did provide bread to the 5,000 and manna did fall from the
sky, but these are obviously rare occurrences.
There’s a lot of human labor that goes into making bread, and none of it
seems overtly spiritual. If Jesus was
interested in directing us toward more primary sources of His provision, I’m
sure He could have thought of something else to reference…perhaps sunlight,
rain, air, gravity, the strong nuclear force, etc. I think instead Jesus uses bread specifically because of all the human labor that goes
into it.
You can’t have bread without a farmer planting a seed and caring
for the fields before finally harvesting and delivering the grain to town. Of course, this grain must also pass through
a flour mill, a bakery, a distributor, and grocery store before finally landing
on my plate. This doesn’t mention the buildings,
the equipment, and the transportation to allow for all this. I’m sure you can think of many details I’m
leaving out. Every step requires human
work and attention.
My job requires that I travel on occasion. Just a week or so ago, I woke up in a city
far away from home. It was my last day
of a long startup and I was ready to be home, ready to see my wife, and ready
to sleep in my own bed. I finished up at
the plant, was driven to the airport by a coworker, went through security, got
on a plane, landed, and found myself on a bus headed toward the parking
lot. I hadn’t given much thought to how all
the folks doing their various jobs enabled that journey home for me. I realized I had taken it for granted that
this lady (or someone in her role) would drive by the terminal to pick me up
and take me to my vehicle. Her task is
one that is necessary in a flourishing society.
I would assume she probably wasn’t reflecting on how she was being the
hands of God steering that bus, but her task was a blessing to me that
day. Just on this journey home, God’s
hands were at work for me in the form of a bus driver, a pilot, an airplane
mechanic, and the guy at Jimmy Johns who baked bread that morning.
When I pray this line of the Lord’s Prayer, I now reflect on
how I’m asking God to work through all the people who help build a thriving
society. I sometimes thank God for placing
people in roles that particularly benefit me, perhaps it’s the guy that picks
up my trash or the farmer who sows a seed, maybe it’s the crew repairing a road
or the grocer who cuts my meat. I think
this is shaping me to more deeply appreciate those whom I share society with…helping
me appreciate my neighbor.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” It’s a bigger request than I had realized. What do you see in it?
Curtis,
ReplyDeleteYou never fail to bring up ideas that cause me to chew and ponder for myself. Not to mention also adding a book to my ever list of books that I tell myself that I am going to read. But after reading your blog post several times and giving myself several days to chew and wrestle with your thoughts and my own, I think I have something to contribute to this convo.
When I hear/read the phrase,"Give us this day our daily bread...", two things come to mind. First, I think is the most obvious, God providing for our daily needs.Now while you have the rare occurrences when God performed miracles and gave food and drink to his people, I think and believe that more times than not, God uses others to help fill that need and meet the needs of others. Secondly, when I hear the word "bread" I also think of Jesus's actions and words at the last supper when he took the bread and said,"Take, eat; this is my body." (Matt 26:26) Thus if you view it in this context of Jesus instructing the disciples that when they pray, pray/ask for your daily dose or your daily fill of Jesus and his spiritual food that your soul/spirit needs to produce the fruit in your life and the lives of others.
Mike,
DeleteI think you're right. When we talk about asking God to provide us our needs, I don't want to separate out the physical from the spiritual needs. That could be almost dualistic. So, good point bringing up this 'other' (spiritual) side of the coin.
The thoughts I shared have helped me to make the request a bit more concrete (even if larger). In what concrete ways do you see God providing 'spiritual food' in your life (or the lives of others)?
Curtis,
ReplyDeleteWhen I think about the 'spiritual food' that is in my life, an image of a bucket that is filling up with water, and as the water reaches the brim and spills over it is spilling over into other buckets. This water is from God and my bucket is continually filling as I spend time with Him each moment of the day. I see this being played out each day with the kids that I work with in the computer lab where i teach. Most of the kids that I work with could be considered troubled kids. Most of them, for one reason or another are serving a sentence for a crime or a series of crimes they have committed. Many of them come feeling lost and hopeless, and all of them are looking for love, grace, and acceptance. While.my job description says that I help the students with their lesssons they are assigned, I see that God has placed me there to help not only be a positive role model for the students, but also spill my overflow of my bucket into their lives. Many times this maybe the first time that particular student may have experienced the feeling of love, grace, truth, and acceptance. This is awesome to see, and the walls that come down when they can feel that you truely do care and are there for them. Now I will saw that this process is a very slow process and takes a lot of time. Thus I have to be continually seeking after God each.and every moment of every day so that I am not only getting my bucket filled from Him, but also so that I can pour my outflow into the lives of others.