04.05. Give us this day our daily bread

Chapter V. “Give us this day our daily bread.” WHEN we set ourselves to fathom the character of a man, we do not so intently observe the expression of his thoughts, as their connection; we do not stand outside and listen just to what he pleases to tell us, but, if possible, enter within and observe the workings of his inner man; we do not care so much to know his ideas and sentiments in detail as to trace the links between them; so as to see the man, not only when he pleases to emerge to the surface, but in the entire current of his feelings and thoughts. And, when we ascertain those minor connections of his various utterances, and can trace all that appears back to that involuntary spring in the heart which suggested it, we have a pretty accurate idea, not of what the man desires us to think him, or even supposes himself to be, but of his real character. Now, when we submit these two petitions, “ Thy will be done on earth,” and, “ Give us this day our daily bread,” to this species of scrutiny, we at once detect the character of their Author. We see that He only could have thus passed from one to the other, who found it His meat and drink to do the will of His Father. Many would pray, “ Thy will be done,” and many would pray, “ Give us bread,” but to how many of us would this have suggested itself as the natural order of these petitions? Are there not few who have chosen the trade or business they follow, because they thought that therein they could best work out God’s will with them, compared to those who have made their choice as being the most pleasant, or most rapid, or most secure way of earning their bread: few to whom the supports and comforts of this life are practically of less importance than the doing of God’s will? If we divide men into two classes, those who work because they are hungry and have to work, and those who work because there is something to be done; those who consider how they may best win a livelihood, and trust that in it they shall somehow find opportunity of doing God’s will; and those who make it their first consideration how they may best serve God, and trust that in doing so bread shall be given them; we need not say which will be the larger class, and as little need we say which will be the more Christlike class. It is in truth a very advanced and enviable condition for a man to be in, when he desires to be supported in this life mainly for the purpose of doing God service. Yet not so advanced by any means that none attain to it, nor that we should be content only to envy without striving to imitate those who have attained it.

How many reasons urge all of us to pray for continuance in life, besides this simple one which led to the prayer of our Lord! When the mist that has long lain gloomily on our earthly future begins to lift and scatter, and reveals a fair and attractive prospect; when plans are entered into the full execution of which will take years to accomplish; when we have found a useful and not unpleasant way of employing our time; when we are surrounded with friends whose counsel guides, and whose affection cheers and rewards our labour, we have evident reason to pray, “ Give us still this day our daily bread “. But therefore ought we the more carefully to consider, whether there be one reason stronger than all these, whether there be one desire which at once and uniformly suggests this petition, and would dietate it still, though the world were blank of comfort and reward, and though natural feeling were prompting us rather to say, “ I would not live alway “. Not, of course, that we should be afraid of cherishing subordinate reasons for continuance in life, but that we should beware lest they be come something more than subordinate, lest they oppose instead of aiding the performance of the main purpose; not that we should be afraid of the enjoyments and attachments of life, but that we should always give the doing of the will of God so prominent a place in our intentions and desires, that we shall very naturally pray, “ Thy will be done on earth,” and, therefore, in order that Thy will may be done, for this end and reason mainly, “ Give us this day our daily bread “. This petition, then, at once shows itself to be quite of a piece with the whole prayer before us. A petition for temporal support, it is a spiritual petition. It presents the world as the godly man sees it. Our meat and drink and raiment first come into view here, and here we see them from the heavenly side. This petition brings our whole earthly condition before God, and readjusts it before Him and with His help. It brings it back every morning to its true position, from which it veers and slides away in the forgetfulness and pressure of the day’s employment. Instead, there fore, of being easy, this petition is one of the most difficult to pray. It is the petition that least of all can be prayed from an earthly mind, for it comes from the directly opposite quarter to all earthly desires, and meets them on that very ground to which they most tenaciously hold. This is the petition of those who seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, who “ buy as though they possessed not, and use the world as not abusing it “. Yet let us not fear to utter it, though we know there is much that is selfish and earthly in the desire as we embrace it, for God is very ready to forgive the evil that is in our asking, that so we may receive His gift, and with His gift His blessing, which will purify us, and form our hearts to heavenly aspirations through the know ledge of His love.

Here, first, in this prayer, we come upon this word “ Give,” the key to the treasury of God’s riches; a word that opens over us the windows of heaven, that wakes the omnipotence of God, and causes the fulness of His resources to flow forth; a word which is as a rod of power in a man’s hand, if he knows to direct it to the great Giver, to Him from whom all things have come, who has given all out of Himself, and who continues to give not grudgingly, nor of necessity, but freely and liberally, because it is of His nature so to do; a word that we must use, be cause we are poor, but which is put into our mouths because we are intended to be rich; a word which, however often and greedily we use it, will still find its echoing “ receive “ in God. And there is no period when this word must be uttered for the last time, for God does not tire of giving, nor, like man, excuse Himself from giving more because already He has given so much, but by the further and more bountiful outpouring of His gifts satisfies that confidence in Him which His former gifts have inspired. And here this word “ Give “ stands in its simplicity, without apology, without circumlocution; in its childlike boldness and straightforwardness of request. It is the wide opening of the mouths of the young birds hungering round the parent. And it is remarkable, that the only introduction of this word in the prayer is when we ask for that which, of all things, we are most inclined to think may be got by our own exertions. We allow that there are spiritual gifts, which it is of God to give. Or at least there are graces which we are aware we cannot have without God’s aid, and which we feel so helpless to procure apart from Him, that it seems appropriate enough to call them “gifts”. But here we are taught to depend on the simple gift of God, not for the well-being of our spirits, but for the maintenance of our bodies. We are to say “ Give “ of that which our whole time is spent in procuring. We are not to say “ Provide,” not “ Put us in the way of acquiring “; but, however it is to be done, we are to say simply “ Give,” as if direct out of Thine hand into ours. What is true of the beasts of the field is equally, and almost as obviously, true of ourselves: “ These wait all upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That Thou givest them, they gather; Thou openest Thine hand, they are filled with food.” Let society refine and involve itself as it will, let it secure itself against all contingencies, and provide regular labour and suitable returns for labour, still it is God whose is our life and breath and all things. This security and plenty, which make us feel less dependent on God than the savage is, who has to-day to find to-day’s food, are only the more liberal opening of God’s hand to us, showing us that we, if we are not more dependent, have more dependence on God than most. And the nearer we come to the actual procuring of food, the more evidently do we see God. We may stay at our work, engrossed by it; we may sit in our rooms, chambers, or counting-houses, and plan, and there we may see no one but our selves providing our maintenance, and may fail to discern any symptoms of God’s work; but when it comes to the end of all this, to the eating for life, we meet God and feel how utterly we are in the power of some other than ourselves.

It is not we who make the corn grow, nor by all the appliances of science could extort one harvest from an unwilling earth. Must not the proudest and best skilled among us, after doing his utmost, just simply wait on God for His bread? This lesson, which one year’s famine so feelingly and unmistakably teaches, seems an easy lesson to learn from the regular and ordinary supply which God maintains by sending seed-time and harvest in the seasons of His appointment. When we consider the vast number of lives to be maintained, the variety of food by which they are maintained in all different parts of the earth, the numberless contingencies, things that might so easily happen, but which, if happening, would hasten multitudes to the grave, the remote and various causes which must all of them be together regulated and ordered to this one end of life, are we not convinced that God is no idle spectator of the earth He has framed for man?

One thing more very strikingly leads us to acknowledge that we are bound to God as the giver of our daily bread; and a thing it is, apparently, intended for this very end. We cannot make food, do what we will; and as little can we store it up for years and centuries. Some things are given us in perpetual retention, once for all, and not year by year; thus we possess the stone with which we build, the coal we burn, and others of the most useful commodities. But the actual food does not so exist, does not exist dead and stored up, so that we can never run out of it. It is of earth’s annual production, and has its term of life, after which it is useless to us. It differs from those things that the earth already contains, and which have only to be taken and fashioned by us for our use, inasmuch as it has to be called into being. That which shall sustain us in the years to come has now actually no existence. It must itself be born and grow, must itself receive life, before it can communicate life to us. And thus are we very plainly unprovided for, except in the faithfulness of God. The future is a blank to us except in so far as God fills it with His goodness. And in what a light does this set the character of him who eats his daily bread, not only as if it must infallibly and of some natural necessity yield him life, but as if he had made it and given it the life which now it gives to him! “ Talk no more, therefore, so exceedingly proudly, let not arrogancy come out of your mouth, for the Lord killeth and maketh alive; He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich; He bringeth low and lifteth up.” What we have by inheritance, and what we have by our own endeavour; the abundance at hand, and the store laid up; all is the gift of God, and through all our possessions we must pray to Him who is at the back of them all, to the Fountain of Life from which they are drawing all that can give us life. For this prayer is not a fanciful connecting of earth with heaven, an elegant way of making our life of drudgery for bread a life sublime, nor a foolish, meaningless homage to God, but it is an asking for what we need and can only have from God. But there is another word in this petition which we must take in connection with this word “ Give “. And it seems, at first sight, strange that we should say, not only “Give us bread,” but “our bread”. The first truth which this suggests, when we pray, is, that what we ask for must be ours and not another s. We must, that is, ask for what God may give us without detriment to others. We are not to expect to reap what others have anxiously sown, nor to enter into other men’s labours. “ If any will not work, neither shall he eat.” The bread we pray for is to be a gift so far as God is concerned, but it is to be ours so far as our fellow-men are concerned. We are to be careful that, in asking God to prosper us, we are not thinking of some other person’s prosperity, and wishing that some of it were transferred to our lot. We are not to push our own interests regardless of the interests of others; still less, so as directly to injure others.

We are to keep within our own domain, and the limits of a fair and open competition. This prayer, then, saves from dishonesty and cruelty. When we thus pray, we see that our advancement is to run in the line of God’s pleasure; and we are enabled to choose rather to wait to see His way of prospering us brought to pass, than to take the matter into our own hands, and, by means pleasing to Him or not, to make a competency for ourselves. It is bread provided honestly in the sight of man that we are to look for, and not the bread of idleness, of deceit, or of extortion. And, therefore, when we say, “ Give us our bread,” we do not expect that God will lift us above the common and toiling ways of men, nor loosen us from the hard and burden some conditions of this life, raining on us bread from heaven; but we trust that He will find for us labour, such as shall not only win us bread, but be otherwise beneficial to us.* And thus God, in that word of His which Christ rested on in the time of His trial, says, “ Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God “ that is, not by the simple and visible gift of God, but by His disposition of our circumstances, and distribution of natural ability to labour, and scope for exercising this ability.

But, again, this word “our” teaches us to be considerate in our desires, and discriminating; to ask not blindly for the good things we see

* Stier quotes a striking proverbial saying, “ We lift our empty hands to heaven, and God lays work upon them “. others enjoy, nor for all that for a moment strikes us as desirable, but for “ our “ bread, for that which is suited to us in our present position.

What others are receiving, and may be both delighting in and profiting by, might be a very disastrous gift to us. This is, then, in other words, the wise prayer of Agur, “ Feed me with food convenient for me “. And while there are hardships in poverty, which none will make light of who knows anything of their variety and their bitterness, yet, if this be the condition appointed to any, let these also thankfully pray for their pittance from God, remembering that He who taught us this prayer Himself lived from day to day, not knowing in the morning where the evening meal was to come from, not knowing in the evening where He would find shelter for the night, having while alive no home He called His own, nor when dead a place provided to lay His body, possessing nothing while in the world, and leaving behind Him no more than the raiment He wore. Though this be a condition which we cannot desire, yet -it has its own blessing, and those who find this allotted to them as their daily bread, will (if they are receiving it thankfully from God) find in the end that no better condition could have been assigned them, and that it has been no small inheritance to share the poverty of their Lord.

Again, it is perhaps not straining this word to find in it a reference to, and prayer for, others along with ourselves. In any case such prayer is very suitable, but it is specially appropriate when we pray for the provision of this life: inasmuch as in this we are all dependent one upon another, no one man’s work sufficing for the actual accomplishment of his own sustenance, clothing, and comforts. In the savage state, men may be excused for some selfishness, where they can live in all things independently of one another, each man building for himself and catering for his own wants. But we are inexcusable, if we be not charitable, not only in prayer and intention, but in deed, we who daily enjoy what has cost the labour of many. And the more we live in liberal community with others, the better will our lives appear in the end to have been spent. On the whole, then, this word “our” teaches us to desire to be laborious, contented, and charitable; to work with our will and strength, doing our best in our place; to wait on God for fruit of our work and returns for our labour; and, receiving these, to be satisfied, if they be small, and willing that others should share with us, if they be large. He who has to earn his bread is girt by this prayer with a fresh and cheerful confidence for his daily duty: and he who has abundance is admonished to be diligent in the right disposal or increase of it, knowing, at least, that this prayer has not been from his true desire, if he leaves to their hunger and misery any whom his further labour might relieve. For our cause is a common cause with all mankind, as our Lord’s self-sacrificing life stands ever teaching us; and while there is want in the world unsupplied, there should be no faculty of labour in the world unexercised. If the healthy do not work, what is to become of the sick? If the strong man do not labour, what help is there for the child and the aged? And to those who are labouring to their utmost, and yet not seeing the results they purposed and still desire, all that can be said is, Wait and pray this prayer still. This is all that can be said, not because your case is a desperate one, but because in this all consolation is included, and all hope, as you well know already, if the Spirit has taught you to say in simplicity, “ Give me this day my daily bread “. By teaching us to ask for bread, our Lord indicates that our desires for worldly good should not be passionate, but moderate; restricted to the supply of the natural wants of our condition. For this the word bread naturally suggests to us.

We say that we do not desire a great deal, but enough to enable us to do God’s will effectively, to be the most we can.* It is not a burden of luxuries and superfluous comforts, but the light equipment of a hardy abstemiousness, which is aimed at by this petition. We acknowledge the propriety of leaning rather to what is severe than to what is sumptuous; and while we by no means deprecate all extras, all comforts and pleasures, these are not sought with the fervency of prayer.

Here, accordingly, the question emerges: Can a man conscientiously pray thus, and straightway proceed to his employment, resolving to acquire, if possible, far more than enough for the maintenance of life? The answer to this has been anticipated, when it was said, that the honest offering of this petition impels a man to labour

* Clement of Alexandria cleverly compares a man’s possessions to a shoe. They must fit him; being cumber some and uncomfortable if too large, as well as painful if pinched. to his utmost. Let him make what money he can, if that be fairly in the way of his calling, only let him, more than any other, keep repeating to himself the reiterated warnings of God’s Word concerning the entangling power of wealth.

Let him start right from the petition preceding this. Let him be sure that his chief end in seeking gain be to do God’s will on earth. Let him be very certain that his purpose is to employ his gains in a manner on which he can ask God’s blessing; and let him through his whole career examine himself, to learn whether the means be not becoming more to him than the end, whether his desires are still going beyond the gold to the Christian expenditure he at first proposed. No doubt this requires a strong and watchful spirit, but since commercial ability, as well as every other talent, is to be consecrated to God, and since money is needed on all hands for the best of purposes, let him who has the ability to gain use this petition, and what he receives as God’s gift he will use in His service. For do we not all feel, when we use this petition, that we must not use what God may this day give us, for the pampering of appetite, for the vanity of display, for waste, for anything which will not please God? We know how it has grieved ourselves to see what has been besought at our hands put to a use which the receiver knows we abhor or disapprove, and we determine to show ourselves worthy stewards of the gift of God to us, and to justify (so far as in us lies) our appointment to so many blessings. And as our prayers are moderate, so let us be thankful for ordinary benefits. For wherever there is material for prayer, there is material for thanksgiving. If we need to pray to God even for our bread, then even for our bread let us give thanks to Him. If to-day’s supply does not come by chance, nor because we were similarly supplied yesterday and the day before, but because God regards our wants of to-day, and for this day also grants us life; then this day ought we to thank Him for this day’s mercies, though they be but the same as yesterday s, and what all other men are enjoying. As each rising sun, touching the wing of the sleeping birds, wakes through the woods a fresh burst of glad melody, as if sun had never risen before; * so let each day’s mercies awake our hearts afresh to the sense of God our Father’s smile, and turn our lives towards His * See Three Wakings, and other poems. light. “ Where nothing is deserved, everything should be received with thanksgiving; “ how then shall we ever discharge our debt of thanks, who deserve to know the power of God’s anger, but experience the power of His mercy?

There is another essential of this petition. We are to pray for this day only. And this is a point of so much importance to the right ordering of the godly life on earth, that our Lord follows it out in the subsequent discourse, and impresses it with a beauty and force of persuasion which have made this a marked passage of Scripture. He anticipated the objection that we must provide for to morrow as well as to-day, and reminds us that He who clothes the lilies of the field, and makes provision for the birds of the air, knows that we also have lives to be maintained, and constantly recurring necessities. By reminding us of our helplessness, of the folly of distracting forethought, and of the sufficiency of the care of God, He shames us into confidence. “ Is not the body more than meat? “ He who has given you the greater, will He not also provide the less? “ Is not the life more than raiment? “ He who can create and maintain the one, may well be trusted to supply the infinitely less costly want. “ Are ye not of more value than many sparrows? “ And yet is one want of one of these overlooked, for gotten, or despised? Does God find pleasure in lavishing on a flower which the eye of man never sees, a beauty which no forethought or effort of yours could produce, and will He spend no care on you, O ye of little faith? Does He not know what you have need of, so that you are constrained to be fearful and anxious in your own behalf? Or can you really, by all your pondering, provide one crumb beyond what He has provided for you? Does your scheming by day and by night remove you out of the care of God into an independent and self-supporting life of your own? “Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Bring not, then, into this day’s cares, and to confuse the duties which this day requires of you, to-morrow’s cares and anxieties about its duties. I here ask God to take me through this day; if to-morrow comes, He knows that I shall be as dependent on Him then as now. But it forms no part of my care; I have cast it on Him. But does this forbid planning of all kinds? Does this preclude all saving or storing? Assuredly not. It forbids nothing which does not interfere with present duty. It precludes nothing which does not indicate mistrust of God, and beget fearfulness and depression of spirit. Any planning or storing of this kind is not for him who prays this prayer. Any anxiety which says, What shall I eat? as if there would be no God to-morrow; any thought of the unknown future which weakens us in any way for plain, present duty; and any self-confident storing, as if we had really more in our barns and banks than in the resources of God; all these are certainly precluded. That there is a great difference between faithless, anxious imagining and scheming, and godly prudence, every one understands who has given a thought to the matter. From the former one sometimes wakes up, thoroughly ashamed of it. Have I work for to-day, and strength for to day? Then let not thought of to-morrow’s food, or how I shall get through to-morrow’s duties, interfere with to-day’s duties, which require for themselves all my thought and care. Let me prepare for to-morrow, so far as I can consistently with what I am called on to do to-day. Let me, for example, lay up seven years corn, like Joseph, if I am given to understand there will be need of it. Let me, like our Lord Himself, gather up the fragments of to-day, that nothing be lost for to morrow. Let me lay by whatever will in all human probability be needed for simple maintenance; but let me do this, knowing that I am as dependent as ever on God, and let me do it only in so far as it does not clash with present claims of charity, hospitality, or station.

This, of course, is one of the cases in which a man’s own conscience must draw the line; must say how much he is to spend or give, and how much to set against a future call. There is no other rule than his own conscience to define this. But of the principle on which all are to act, no one will be left in doubt who is from day to day sincerely asking God for his daily bread. And of the two extremes, trusting in gold to the utter exclusion of all confidence in God, and trusting in God to the neglect of the rules of prudence which He has taught (which God calls “ tempting Him “),no one needs to be told which is the more dangerous, and few can safely dispense with self delivered warnings against it. The answer, therefore, to this petition will be, that our spirits will be cleansed from worldliness, covetousness, and hardness of heart; from highmindedness, self-confidence, and dishonesty; from discontent, envy, and indolence; and that we shall be enabled, without repining at what is past, or fretting ourselves with thoughts of the future (though repenting of the past and preparing for the future), to summon all the powers given us to this day’s duty. And as we learn our place as dependants, we shall awake to the value of what is consigned to us, and as we commit the past and the future alike to God, there remains before us this day, a portion competent to our faculties, and practicable, with no uncertainties to distract us from the “valuable certainties” of the present. And this dependence should not be found difficult by those who have an Advocate such as ours, who well understands human necessities, Himself having hungered; whose earnest, purposing, and planning love is the same now as when He “ be came poor that we might be rich,” and who has so opened His riches to our poverty, that sufficiency is found in Him every hungering soul finding enough in Him, every weary soul finding rest in Him, every tossed and breaking soul for getting its sorrow in Him.