To pray the Lord’s prayer may, at times, seem pointless. After all, why should we pray for God to give us our bread today? What does God have to do with it? Food comes from the farm, is processed in factories, arrives in the store and we buy it. God seems far removed from the process. But without God we would have no food. God is the heart of all the food we eat. All food comes from the earth, and is allowed to grow through water. And God provides the earth, he provides the water (Ps 24:1). If God took away the water or the land, we would have no food to eat. So it makes sense to be grateful to God. Everyone depends on God for their food—that’s the way it is. (Ps 145:15)
God promises food to the obedient
But God is not just a distant provider of food, he also is concerned about some people’s food. Those people who have made an agreement with God to follow Him and to live according to His ways, God specifically makes sure that they have food. He has made many promises that those who are faithful to their agreement to Him, He will provide their food. They need not worry about it—ever. (Lev. 26:3-6 ; Ps. 37:25; Isaiah 33:15-16) God’s people will never lack food, He is always providing for them.
Hunger is the opposite of salvationBut, of course, not everyone has food. Many people go hungry. In fact, approximately one fifth of the people in the world today are starving to death—some slowly, some quickly (that’s much more than a billion). And another fifth of the world do not have the ability to get enough food to meet their nutritional needs. That isn’t choice on their part, they just can’t get it. And yet this is in a world in which the wealthy, industrialized nations need to pay farmers not to overproduce their land and so drive the prices down. In other words, farmers in the West must grow less, while those in the South are in greater and greater need.
Of course, this is terrible. The Bible has much to say about hunger, and it places the source of hunger—whether someone is starving, or just doesn’t have enough food—to one of four causes:
a. Famine—a widespread hunger due to bad crops. This is pretty common, especially in Genesis (Genesis 41, etc), and it is just a fact of life. But, at the same time, it seems that God provides other regions of the world with abundance so a famine might not be too severe.
b. Man’s oppression—withholding what one needs from the needy. Hunger occurs simply because of people’s stinginess. Some people have abundance, while others have need, but if the ones who have abundance refuse to share, then there is hunger. God always provides enough food in the world, but not everyone decides to share as God commands. (Proverbs 13:23)
c. Laziness—not wanting to work for food. Some people are hungry in the midst of abundance because they refuse to work. If a farmer doesn’t plant, no matter how much land they have, they will never have crops. Even so, everyone who wants to eat will have to do some kind of work. This doesn’t necessarily mean a “job” per se, but some kind of work. (Proverbs 12:11;20:13; 28:19)
d. God’s judgment—Some people who have made a covenant with God will go hungry. But this is only because they have ignored God’s covenant and been disobedient to God. (Lev. 26:26; Isaiah 3:1) This might be with individuals, or a whole nation—if a people have an agreement with God through Jesus or someone else and they disobey God—by worshipping a false god, by ignoring the poor in their midst, by being impure—then God may give them a judgment of hunger.
Food is God’s blessingHunger, then, is just the opposite of God’s salvation. It is almost the worst thing that can happen to a person—the very thing that sustains life, you cannot have. But God’s salvation is tied to food again and again—
· God blesses a nation that follows Him with abundant crops;
· When there is abundant food for everyone, it means that the needy are provided for by the people who are generous and loving.
· When there is abundant food, it means that our sins are forgiven by God, for He is providing us with the food we need.
A Prayer for the Contented Poor
Again, then, why should we ask God for our basic food? It seems like a self-sufficient system. But it isn’t that easy.
The Lord’s prayer is a prayer for the poor—those who aren’t sure where their bread is coming from on a worldly level. How many people, when their refrigerator is full of food and they have a pantry stocked with food and they have plenty of money in the bank—would they honestly pray “give us this day our bread”? They already know where their food is coming from! They know that they have food this day and the next and the next. They don’t have to be concerned for food, so why would they sincerely pray that prayer? They wouldn’t. So this prayer is not for those who know where their next meal comes from. It is for those who aren’t sure, on a worldly level. It is for the poor.
And this prayer isn’t for the greedy. After all, most of us, when we pray, we want our needs all taken care of—“Lord help me to not be poor anymore!” “Father, give me permanent housing!” “Father, give me a pantry full of food and money in the bank.” But that’s not what this prayer is about. It is praying only for the food one needs this day—not tomorrow or next month. It is recognizing that when God gives food, he gives it to people one day at a time—just like the Israelites in the wilderness. If they collected more than a day’s worth—knowing that the next day they would get more—the food would spoil and get worm in it. God was training them to trust in Him every day to provide the food they needed that day. This isn’t normal for an agricultural society—they usually think of food in a year-by-year basis. But Jesus was training his disciples to focus on trusting God for their food every day.
So the Lord’s prayer isn’t for the greedy, nor for those that have more than they need. It is for the poor who are contented to trust in God daily.
A New Standard of Living
But this isn’t how we are trained to think in our society. Our ideal is to have the big, permanent house, with the big, full pantry, and the huge yard and entertainment center and complete medical insurance and more and more. It is the American dream to have everything you need at your disposal all the time. But this isn’t Jesus’ ideal, it’s not the Christian dream. The Christian dream is to have God constantly providing for your every need every day. It may not mean having huge storage and a lot of possessions—but it does mean living without worry about basic needs, because we have experienced God’s provision on a daily basis. Even as Paul said, “With food and covering we shall be content.” (I Timothy 6:8)Any more than that is greed.
Does this mean that God is opposed to us having lots of stuff? Not necessarily. God often provides some people with lots of stuff and a huge house and a huge pantry full of food. But he provides it to people so they can provide to others. He gives excess so those who have excess can share with those who have less. The American way of life is having more than we need so our needs are all provided for. The Christian way of life is trusting in God for our needs, and being generous to those who do not have enough when we have more than we need.
Never Be Hungry AgainSo how, according to Jesus, can we never be hungry again? Simple:
Pray to God for food—(Matthew 7:9-11) God promises to provide food for us, but we need to ask Him. God will provide if we ask. Thus, we need to learn to ask. This is why Jesus commanded us to pray for our daily bread—that way we are daily asking God for our food.
Seek God’s kingdom and righteousness— (Matthew 6:25-33) If we are focused on righteousness, then God will provide our food—that has always been his promise. If we will do what is right in the Lord, be faithful to him in all of our ways, he will never allow us to go hungry. All we need to do is to trust in Him.
Provide for others out of our excess—(Proverbs 11:25; Luke 12:33) If we are generous with what God has given us, especially to those who are poor and needy, then God will provide us even more. We will not be limited to just our daily bread, but God will provide us with much more to share with others. Our pantries will be full—but it will be for the many whom we provide for on a daily basis.
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