Daily Bread

We're doing a series on prayer at church right now. Pastor Rod is using the Lord's Prayer from Matthew to give us a pattern to pray. This week was the third week of the series, and he focused on the part of the passage that says, "Give us this day our daily bread." You would think there isn't much to say about that. Seems pretty self-explanatory. Boy, are you wrong! I learned more about that one sentence yesterday than I have in my 29 years of life (yes, I'm getting old!). And, I learned something I never really paid attention to before. Pastor Rod broke it down into even shorter parts, teaching about what each word or two meant and how it was useful in praying. But the part that really spoke to me was daily bread. He used the illustration of fresh-baked bread. If you've ever had it, you know that the day it is baked it is delicious. However, if you wait a day to eat it, it is hard and stale, nothing like it was the day before. God does not promise us tomorrow. However, He does promise us that He will meet our needs today. That is the whole point of daily bread. For God to meet our needs just for today. To give us enough strength, peace, hope, food, money, or whatever to make it through today. God knows what our day will hold, and if we can actually rely on Him, He will give us what we need to get through it. I'm sure most of you have heard the scripture that says to let tomorrow worry about itself. That's what we have to do...pray for enough for today, and then tomorrow do the same thing. It's day by day.
This lesson came at the perfect time. Our little family is in probably the roughest financial time of our lives together. I'm being very open and honest because I feel that some of you are right there with me (or have been) and need to hear this. When you have to tell people you can't do things (on a daily basis) because you don't have the money, it gets old. When you have to tell your child they have to wait to have something very simple until pay day, it makes you sad. But, God does not promise us that He will give us enough to go out to eat with our friends every week or to buy things for our children. What He promises is to meet our NEEDS. I have spent a great deal of time over these last weeks really focusing on what my needs are and what my wants are. I'm praying for God to meet our needs - food for today, gas for today, a roof over our heads for today. Do you see a pattern? I'm not praying for tomorrow. I need to focus on today. 
Give us this day our daily bread.....