Eleventh Sunday after Trinity – Saturday
Give us this day our daily bread. – Matthew 6:11.
How tenderly mindful our heavenly Father is, even of our poor body and its wants and needs! His Son, our dear Savior, bids us pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.”
By “daily bread,” everything is meant that belongs to the support and wants of the body. Hence, God will give us this if we ask Him in the name of Jesus. Therefore, we should not worry, as, alas, we are very prone to do, but we should pray. And we should pray for what we need each day, “this day;” we should not be uneasy about tomorrow. We should become as little children. Do little children worry about their food and raiment? Do they not rather ask their parents for what they need? And have you ever heard a child say: “Mother, give me something to eat tomorrow?” Does a child trouble itself about tomorrow?
Oh, let us be more trusting children of God! But remember, my dear Christian, that your Savior does not bid you ask for great abundance or for dainties, but for plain daily bread. This He promises to give you. And if the thought occurs to you that even to the wicked, who never pray, God gives, not daily bread alone, but even riches and abundance, then note two things: 1. As a child of God, you surely wish to receive your daily bread from the hand of God with prayer and thanksgiving. And besides, may the wicked depend upon it that God will at all times give them their daily bread? By no means. But you may. Therefore, pray with a childlike heart: “Give us this day our daily bread.” 2. Share, as you are able and have the “opportunity” (Galatians 6:10), your daily bread with your needy neighbor, ever remembering how your gracious God has shared with you what you need, not only for your body, but has also, in His everlasting mercy, shared with you what you need, in and through Christ Jesus, for your soul. “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth forever” (Psalm 136:1).
PRAYER – Dear heavenly Father, continue to keep giving me Thy faithful Holy Spirit, working through Thy Word, that it may be my daily concern to be and remain Thy dear child. Then let me continue to diligently perform my duty as required by my calling and position, wherein Thou hast placed me, and let me always continue to look for my daily bread from Thy Fatherly goodness, in no wise burdening my heart with heathenish worries, for Thou art my dear Father, through Jesus Christ, my Savior. Amen.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and let us all be clothed and fed.
From war and strife be our Defense,
from famine and from pestilence;
that we may live in Godly peace,
free from all care and avarice.
(Hymn 458, st. 5; TLH)