"Give us this day our daily bread"

This is a well known prayer request found in the prayer Jesus of Nazareth taught to His disciples. Let's look at the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew 6:9-13

"(9) In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.
(10) Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

(11) Give us this day our daily bread.
(12) And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

(13) And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

Verse 11 shows us a simple request. Have you ever stopped and considered what is involved in the granting of that request? Bread does not just evolve! Someone has to make it! It has to be planned and made in such a way as to produce bread that is edible and tasty. There is something immensely satisfying when you smell bread baking in the oven.

I recall reading about a large department store whose bakery was on the basement level. In winter they used to pipe the aroma of the baking bread outside at street level to draw customers into the store. Just imagine walking past that store on a cold winter's day and your nostrils are assailed by the delicious smell of baking bread. Would you have an urge to go in and by some delicious pastries from the Bakery Department?

Now let's go through the sequence of events necessary for us to have our daily bread. The main ingredient in bread is flour. Flour is of course milled from grain. The grain crops are harvested by the farmers who grow the crops. For the farmers to grow the grain they need certain elements to make this happen.

They need:

§  Seed

§  Good soil

§  Fertiliser

§  Sunlight

§  Rain

§  Favourable weather conditions.

It is the true and living God who provides these blessings. Without our Sun in our solar system there would be no sunlight upon the Earth. Our planet Earth is situated just the right amount of distance from the Sun so that we don't burn up in intense heat. Or on the other hand, we don't perish from it being too cold to live on our planet. It is sunlight that helps to make plant life grow.

Then our God has provided the seeds for the grain crops.

Genesis 1:11-12

"(11) Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so.
(12) And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good."

Fertile soil is also a necessary requirement. If the soil does not have good nutrients in it the plants will not grow. The soil needs to be cultivated to provide a good home for the seeds to germinate and grow. Sometimes fertiliser is required to supplement the nutrients in the soil.

Rain and water is also necessary for the plants to grow. Not enough rain and the plants can die. Too much rain and the plants will rot and die. So the farmers are hoping for the right amount of water at the right times for the plants to reach maturity so they are ready for harvesting.

Favourable weather conditions during the growing season are needed for good crops. Events like droughts and floods and hail storms will ruin good crops. Sometimes there are other factors brought into play such as locust plagues and mice plagues. All these things are dependent on the sovereign will and the permissive will of our God.

On top of all this, favourable weather conditions are needed during the harvesting season. The harvested grain is put into silos and later transported to the Flour Mills for processing into flour. In days of old, people often baked their own bread. In our modern Western societies the trend is for bakeries to bake bread and offer it for sale to consumers. Regardless of whether a bakery bakes the bread, or we bake it ourselves, there are many factors brought into play before we can have bread to eat.

Then of course if we buy our bread or flour we need money to pay for these items. This means that we need some way of earning that money. Or if you are fortunate enough you may be one of those people who inherit wealth and prosperity. There are costs involved at every stage of the process in turning grain crops into flour, then into bread.

So when we pray "Give us this day our daily bread." it is not just a matter of being handed a loaf of bread. The true and living God controls many different operations to ensure that we get our daily bread. Next time you go to a shop and buy a loaf of bread, pause, and thank our God for the many things He has put in place to ensure that we are able to purchase that bread.

Jon Peasey

Biblical Perspectives blog www.jon-peasey.blogspot.com

Ebooks author page https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JRPeasey

[All Scriptures quoted are from the New King James version; unless otherwise noted. Words enclosed in [ ] are inserted for clarity. Words in bold type emphasise a point. You may notice some verses are quoted with ... at the beginning, ending or elsewhere in a verse. Only the relevant part or parts of the verse, that relate directly to the current subject matter is quoted.]

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