Give us each day our daily bread… (Luke 11: 3)

“God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” (Prayer of St Augustine, 4th century)

Why is our faith important to us? If you look around, it seems that even people who don’t have faith have what they need, their “daily bread.” So when we pray for ours, what are we asking for?

Henry French writes that it’s “possible to confuse needs with wants.” (p 75)

Possible? I might argue that, in our culture, it is impossible not to! If we sat down and thoughtfully made three lists, one of the things that we need, one of the things we have, and one of the things we want, I think that those lists would look very different. But how often are we thoughtful about what we need and what we want? Most of us are able to get whatever we want whenever we want it. And so it is possible that we don’t make the distinction very often.

This summer I bought a new car. Our family of 4 drivers (one who is away at college) now owns 3 cars, and we so we are never without transportation. We never have to wait for a ride, we never have to go out of our way to drop someone off, and we never have to walk anywhere if we don’t want to. Really, if one of us didn’t have to ask permission to use a car, we would never even have to see or talk to each other at all! The down side? I will let you come to your own conclusions.

I included St. Augustine’s prayer today to remind us that we belong to God, and everything that we “own” belongs to God as well. We should take a moment to remember that. Our daily bread includes not only what we physically need, but also includes our relationships with each other, and most importantly with God. We will finally realize what we need when our hearts find rest in God.

Prayer for today

God, give me the wisdom to know what I need, to be thankful for what I have, and to be thoughtful about the things I want. And give me the wisdom to know the difference. Our hearts finally seek rest in you. Amen