God Speaking

“Give us today our daily bread”

(Matthew 6: 11)

A few weeks ago, we had a visiting guest speaker at our church. He was originally from Scotland, and I immediately felt in tune with him as he told us about his school days when he was a boy in Scotland. He shared with us that every morning at school the children gathered and recited the Lord’s prayer. My experience in Australia where I was born, was the same. The whole school gathered, and we sang a hymn, recited the Lord’s prayer, and ended with God Save The King. (That immediately tells you I am old). The speaker also had a similar memory to me, we recited the prayer without any feeling or any real knowledge about what the words meant it was just something we said every morning. 

The pastor’s sermon was about meaningful prayer, but after he had reminded me about just reciting the Lord’s prayer, I went back, afterwards to read the whole passage in the Bible. Jesus is teaching his disciples many wise ways to live his teaching and warns them about exactly what we all can fall into, reciting words without thinking of the great depth of what we are saying 

“And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.” (Matthew 6: 7)

Then Jesus speaks a very powerful message to us all 

“This then is how you should pray….” (Matthew 6: 9)

This is obviously not like a poem we recite from memory. It is the right and beautiful way to enter the Father’s presence to communicate with him. The beginning would have been very startling to the disciples. God was never addressed as Father, in fact his name was so sacred it was never spoken so when Jesus tells us we can now call him, Father we also should always be aware of the privilege granted to us. The beginning also awakes us, it is not Dear Father, but Our Father we are praying it together as the family of God 

What really made me think about were these beautiful words  

“Give us today our daily bread.” (Matthew 6: 11)

The study I read every morning is called Our Daily Bread and of course we need food for our physical bodies but underlying these words is an even deeper meaning and the title of the study reveals it. We need feeding for our spiritual souls. Jesus told the disciples at the last supper that the wine was his blood, but the bread was his body. We need that bread of life every day and the way we receive it is to spend time in prayer every day and ask him to fill us with his presence, so we have the strength to walk in the path of truth with him.

Such a good reminder to always to think of the words we are saying when we pray the beautiful prayer the Lord has given us, not like children reciting a poem in school, but with deep meaning and love.