What are you praying for?

Recently printed in Watertown's Public Opinion...

In times of joy and sorrow, celebration and despair prayers are said. Prayers are offered for peace between warring nations, for health and safety of loved ones and for daily bread. But there is one prayer that is to be a model for our prayers - the prayer Jesus taught us to pray, the Lord's Prayer. In this prayer, Jesus teaches us to demand for the Lord's name to be sacred, for our world to become just like it is in heaven, and that God give us our daily bread. No "please" is offered. Jesus teaches us to urgently demand, "Give us this day our daily bread." We are even taught to give God a deadline: today! It takes a lot of audacity to pray this demanding prayer, yet that is what Jesus taught us to humbly and respectfully do.

When we demand daily bread from God, we are demanding to be given what we need for this life. It is not a demand for a mansion or a luxury car, but it is a demand for what is needed to sustain our lives. We pray for bread to eat, for a safe place to sleep, and for an orderly community. Jesus teaches us to pray this to our Father in heaven, who has promised to provide our daily bread. Praying this prayer refocuses us on God who provides everything we have and everything we need.

In these uncertain times this prayer is a powerful testament to the way God cares for each one of us, but it also calls us to care for others as well. God has given us our daily bread, but some will go to bed cold and hungry tonight. Too often this happens because some of us have unjustly hoarded the daily bread and the fruits of creation. When we pray the prayer Jesus taught, we should also ask ourselves how we can help others receive their share of the daily bread God provides.

Thanks be to God who will continue to provide the daily bread even as we demand our portion!