Give Us This Day...

It's interesting to me how we can learn the Lord's Prayer as a kid and not really know what it means until we grow up and live out a life of faith. 

I remember praying "Give us this day our daily bread..." and thinking as a kid how much I like bread and that it's just so cool that God gives us bread every day!  YAY God!!!  It wasn't until we moved here on the mission field that I truly understood what that phrase meant. 

When we lived in the US and things got tight we went out and got an extra job.  Sometimes it was a less than glamorous job--but it got us through the tight spots.  We struggled a little but could truly make things happen when we needed to.  Thank you God for providing jobs and the opportunity to work and provide for our needs.  He was giving us our daily bread. 

Moving to Guatemala where we can't just go out and get a job (we don't have the right visa for that) if things get tight has really opened my eyes to what this means in our lives.  Sometimes God provides daily--not ahead of time.

I have the American mentality that a savings account and a bit of a cushion is a good thing and a desirable thing to have.  It's irresponsible not to have some extra little bit put away in case of an emergency.  I have been under a lot of self-condemnation because that doesn't happen for us!  It's been a tough thing for me to see.  I often wonder why I can't save.  Then I think about it a little and realize this:  maybe God wants to provide DAILY. 

We get our offering and it seems to be more than enough and I think "NOW we can put some away."  Only to find that our car needs hundreds of dollars of more work than we realized or there's a medical situation to deal with or one of our homeless people needs some meds or one of our guys in rehab needs shampoo and eye glasses or our electric bill was figured wrong and now we have to make up the difference!  This is a part of daily life here in Guatemala.  Sometimes we can't plan ahead--and just when we think we have it's all gone!

I find it interesting that it's taken me this long to realize that daily means day by day.  We may not be able to plan for tomorrow we just have to take God's provision as it comes--daily.  This is faith!  This is where the rubber meets the road.  This is where we trust that He is our daily provider as we are faithful with what He provides.

So now when I pray "Give us this day our daily bread..." I smile because I realize now what it means to actually live completely and totally dependent on God for every. single. day.  Not easy--but always worth it.