Responding to last week’s post on “your will be done” someone made the comment “It looks like you think that God doesn’t care about our decisions.” My offending remark had to do with a friend who wants to buy a house that his wife is not equally enamored of. My conclusion was that, in some respects, it might not really matter whether they moved into this or that or another house. Of course, sometimes God has a specific house or spouse or job for us. Overall, however the Father is more concerned with the process of decision making. Are his children displaying the character of Jesus? Is this brother showing love, patience, surrender? Is he listening for God’s word about righteousness more than he is for a word about living quarters?
The more I’ve thought about these questions, the more it makes sense that Jesus’ next petition in his model prayer is, “Give us today our daily bread.” The Father wants to provide for us so that we can fulfill the desire to do his will, which Jesus says is to be our very sustenance. It is a profoundly simple thought that the measure of that provision is daily bread: basic nourishment that keeps us alive. Food that satisfies, that is not aimed at our appetites, but that deals with our true hunger.
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