Baking the Bread of Necessity | Prayer – Part 3

I still believe in prayer and despite my weird story, I believe I have experienced the power of prayer in my life. Those answers may have been coincidences, and the outcomes may have happened without prayer or divine involvement, but I choose to believe in prayer, because I want to believe that God intervenes in our lives for the better. Despite never having experienced dramatically immediate and miraculous answers to prayer, I still pray for those things, because I hope that God can answer prayer in that way, and does, and I need that hope, maybe more than I really need the thing I am praying for.

 

I suppose this leads me to what I ultimately believe about prayer, at this moment in time. I think that we have all become a bit lost, when it comes to prayer, and despite asking for prayer, I think that the answers we seek, are not what we absolutely need.

 

Jesus told us how to pray by teaching us the following words:

 

Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.

Let your Kingdom come.

Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.

Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen

 

 

You might have heard people say how this prayer provides a rounded model for how we are supposed to pray, that it touches on different themes and informs what we should be praying for. This is all great and I don’t feel the need to repeat ideas which have already been covered elsewhere, concerning this prayer being a framework for how we pray, but I do want to focus in on what this prayer isn’t doing, which is presenting a list of our requests and demands to God, and then waiting to see what God will do with them, which I fear, is how we tend to come to prayer. Even when our prayers aren’t based on our own personal needs, they do still tend to become wish lists of one kind or another.

 

These prayers can be well intentioned and are seemingly legitimate things to ask God for, we ask that God’s presence will be with us, we ask that the Holy Spirit will guide us, we ask for those who are sick to be healed, we ask for wisdom for our politicians, we ask for peace where there is war, we ask for wealth where there is poverty, and so on. These are all good things to want and valid things to pray for, but they are also a little bit demanding. They are things that we would like to see, or that we think God would like to see, and I wonder if we pray for these things sometimes, from a place that doesn’t really concern God’s holiness, kingdom or will. The only part of the Lord’s Prayer which concerns our ability to navigate the difficulties of life here on earth, is in the line where we ask, “Give us today our daily bread”. I think we take this to mean, “Give us the things that we need to make our lives comfortable and less stressful, give us what we want so we can be happy and content, give us easier lives so that we don’t have to struggle.

 

I think we know that “daily bread”, kind of means what it says, that we will be given what we need to get through the day. However, I think there is a huge gap between what we think we need, and what we actually need. We might think we need an immediate space to park the car at a busy supermarket, although we’d probably manage if we had to drive around the car park for a few minutes and wait for someone to eventually leave. We might think that we need a dream yacht, although we’d probably cope with a lower spec yacht, and maybe even without any yacht. More seriously, we might think that we need swift resolutions to the difficult circumstances that life throws at us, although what we probably need more than those answers to prayer, is the strength to simply get through the day.

 

In the original Greek of the New Testament, the phrase ‘daily bread’ is epiousios artos. The word artos, which means bread, is clear enough, but the word epiousios is interesting for a number of reasons. This word isn’t found anywhere else in the New Testament, and so the use of it in this passage is very specific and deliberate. It means ‘the bread of our necessity’ or ‘the bread that suffices for each day’.

 

Bread wasn’t a luxury, it was a staple that everyone had, it was one of the bare minimum items that people needed nutritionally, to get them through the day. When Jesus fed the five thousand, he did so using bread and fish, there wasn’t any wine, fruit, or meat. He didn’t give the people a gourmet feast, he gave them a meal that that would replenish them, after following him all day. It might not have been the meal that all five thousand had wanted to eat, but it was what they needed, and the Bible says that they all ate it and were satisfied. This was bread of necessity, true, it might have been magic bread that was consequently, also delicious, but I imagine that it would have just been a normal, reliable, solid, no-frills loaf. The bread that they needed that day, and some fish. Similarly, when we pray this prayer, perhaps hoping for the things we need with extra bells, whistles and ribbons on, what we basically need, is enough to get us through the day. Anything we get beyond that is a bonus. I think that we need to reframe how we pray with this in mind. If God can give us the means to get through the day, then we can then be thankful of that, and anything extra we get, we can be additionally grateful for.

 

I think if we consider the Lord’s Prayer, it’s about submitting to, and focusing on God. It’s about recognising that God is Holy, and that God’s will and kingdom are above our own wills and our earthly kingdoms. It is about acknowledging that God can give us what we need to get through the day, that we are forgiven and so should forgive others, and that God will keep us from temptation and evil. It’s about looking to God in all aspects of our lives, and recognising that God is enough, which is a challenge, but I think it can also be something that can bring us peace and assurance.

 

If I reflect back on my weird testimony there is one thing that stands out for me, which is that I stopped asking for prayer that my anxiety would be healed, because nothing ever changed and the unanswered prayer just made me feel worse. Even though I became disillusioned with the power of prayer at this time, I still had my faith, and instead of praying for healing, I returned to simply being with God. There wasn’t any expectation, when I came to God, most of the time I was still frustrated with my job and burdened with my anxiety, but I wasn’t constantly disappointed with God, and I felt I had enough, and I was thankful for that. Through just being still before God, I did start to grow closer to God, and more confident in myself as a person. That journey continues and it isn’t always perfect, but I feel content in what I have, and I think that is reflected in how I pray. When I pray, I don’t usually have a list of things that I would like sorting in my life, because I believe that God will give me what I need to get through each day. Life isn’t always easy, I still struggle with anxiety, and I still find it hard to trust God, but I still believe that God has given me more than enough to get through each day, and I know that God doesn’t let me down.

 

When it comes to praying for other people, if they are asking for specific things like healing, change in circumstance, or things like dream yachts and cars, then I still ask for those things when I pray for them, because it seems like the right thing to do. It would be a bit insensitive of me to tell them that they don’t really need those things, but I believe that those prayers might be answered, because maybe that is what that person absolutely needs. However, I’ve also been challenged in terms of how I pray for other people when they ask for certain things.

 

About few years ago, I heard a talk about prayer, and one particular statement the preacher made, stuck with me ever since, which is that 80% of the requests we make to God in prayer, don’t require any divine intervention, because they are requests that we can answer ourselves. Obviously, there are lots of things that we pray for, that we can’t answer ourselves, because we aren’t all powerful deities. We can’t bring the dead back to life, heal people with terminal cancer, or single handedly change the hearts and minds of corrupt world leaders. However, there are things that we pray for, that we can already do something about ourselves. If someone asks for prayer because they are struggling with loneliness and depression, then we can pray that God will make them feel better, but we could also answer that prayer ourselves by inviting that person round to hang out and watch a film or have a meal, and maybe by spending time with them they will feel less lonely and depressed. If someone asks for prayer because they are struggling financially, then we can pray that God will help them get a better paid job or that they will find a food bank, but we could also answer the prayer ourselves by buying their shopping for a week, giving them a loan, or asking if there is anything we can do that might need to help ease their financial burden. If someone asks for prayer because they are burnt out from work and looking after their kids, then we can pray that God will give them energy and a sense of renewal, but we could also answer the prayer ourselves by offering to babysit their children so they can have a night off.

 

These are all small things but it doesn’t end there. If we live in cities and towns where there are problems with homelessness, then as a church we could pray that God would give wisdom to the local government so that they find an effective solution to the problem, but as a church we could answer the prayer ourselves by helping at homeless shelters, finding ways of helping people there, and addressing the needs of those people in practical ways. If we live in cities and towns where there are problems with poverty, or crime, then as a church we could pray that God would bring wealth and peace to problem areas, or we could donate money and goods to local charities, we could get involved in those communities, or hold our own events and schemes which help people in some way. Granted, these are challenges for us, and I will be the first to admit that I fail abysmally in being the answer to prayer in all of the examples I’ve given, but I also know that I need to step up, and not just pass the problem onto God, asking him to do something because I don’t think it’s in my skill set.

 

 

Text taken from “Unanswerable: Exploring the Complexities of the Christian Faith and Biblical Truth”, which is available from Amazon, and from all good book shops. An audiobook is also available at https://mindmole.bandcamp.com/music