Give Us This Day Our Daily Dread
At Ikon we’re trying to learn how to pray. My mother – who is part of our community of faith – wrote this in the comments of a recent exercise on “daily bread”:
So I did this exercise the other day and thought to myself, OK, that was nice but do I really trust God to provide my needs? No not really.
Then today as I am coming back from picking up my husband and son from the airport and complaining how I need a vacation, we stopped at a light and I notice an old man on the side of the road with a card board sign that said, “Please, I’m Hungry”
I’m looking around for my purse and I’m really agitated because I can’t find it, finally I say out loud, doesn’t somebody have some money on them?! My husband pulls out the cash in his pocket and I command him to give the guy the 5$ I see lying in his palm. Dave rolls down the window and the old man hobbles over to the car, not only is he old but he is also crippled. Dave hands the man the money and the guy not only profusely thanks us but He also says God Bless You. Now I am so pissed off I almost cry. I rail loudly to my poor family in the car against a society who doesn’t take care of it’s poor, it’s old, it’s crippled. But is that who I am really mad at? Could I be mad at a God who allows this old, crippled man to have to beg on the street? Or am I mad at myself because I allow it? Give us this day our daily bread…….
I love this tension. You know you’re reading the Bible wrong if all it ever provides you is comforting thoughts to reinforce a comfortable life.
There was a time when the Bible fed me nothing but comfort and I was a glutton. Then came a time when it fed me nothing but sorrow and I became an anorexic. Lord help me feast in temperance, finding joy and nourishment in both the sweet and the bitter.
