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Pray for ONE Reading Plan | Week 2 | Day 3
Prayer
Take a moment to be silent and still. In order to be fully present in body and mind, take a deep breath in and let it out slowly. Do this three times. Thank God for His provision in your life and ask for Him to provide you with encouragement and strength for today.
Bible Reading: Matthew 6:9-14
Read these verses three times slowly.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
Reflection & Questions
We are continuing to reflect on the Lord’s prayer in our readings, and today we reach the simple and profound line:
Give us today our daily bread.
The request is for bread. It is quite a small request considering that in His prayer, Jesus has addressed “Our Father in Heaven” and in the lines before He prayed the mountain-moving request of “your kingdom come”! It’s almost like praying for a parking spot when there’s a war going on. But that perhaps is the point. We’re to bring everything to God. There’s no request too large or too small. We’re not to filter our prayers. We’re to be utterly dependent on God and bring everything to Him.
It is not just a request for bread, it is a request for today’s bread. Which makes this prayer a daily prayer. “Daily bread” for Jews would be a clear reminder of how God took care of the people of Israel in the desert for forty years, providing bread (manna) from heaven each day. It was a time when they were fully dependent on God to survive. While we may never need God to actually send food from heaven, Jesus is saying we’re to learn to live in that kind of dependence on our Father.
- To what degree are you dependent on God? Why? Are there requests that you feel are too small to bring to God? Why?
Prayer
Talk to God in response to today’s reading.
Worship Song
You might use this song today to worship Jesus today:
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Questions?
Ed Applegate
