The Lord's Prayer

 

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.  Amen.

 

Another set of words I hold close to my heart are, “daily bread”.  As I have said the Lord’s Prayer over my lunch, “daily bread” becomes tactile and tangible.  But I realize that these two words don’t have to be so literal.  Daily bread is about shelter and security; it is about relationships that fill me with life; it is about ways that I am strengthened and sustained in mind, body, heart, and soul.

 

How is God nurturing and nourishing you right now?  I don’t mean this rhetorically.  Speak aloud some responses and reactions to your screen. 

How is God feeding and fueling you physically?

How is God supporting you emotionally?

How is God filling you intellectually?

How is God caring and loving you spiritually?

 

I think about my daily walks around the block as times of both physical exercise and spiritual renewal.

 

Or I think about my wife’s hugs as holy emotional care that wraps around me.

 

Or a good book I am reading is awakening new insights intellectually and spiritually.

 

Go back through those questions to ponder prayerfully bigger and bolder “daily bread” that gives us life.

 

Prayer:  Manna-providing God, continue to help me name and notice the ways You show up disguised as my own, ordinary, life.  Amen.