E.M. Bounds, the Methodist Episcopal pastor best known for his books on prayer, says about this first petition of the Lord’s Prayer —
“When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” we are, in a measure, shutting tomorrow out of our prayer. We do not live in tomorrow but in today. We do not seek tomorrow’s grace or tomorrow’s bread. They thrive best, and get most out of life, who live in the living present. They pray best who pray for today’s needs, not for tomorrow’s, which may render our prayers unnecessary and redundant by not existing at all!”
To pray for today’s bread — today’s needs, today’s hungers, today’s sustenance – is to live in this moment. Today is the arena of God’s action, today is the time to receive what God promises and offers and gives. Tomorrow may never come… and if it does, it will be the today in which we then live.
To journey through Lent, in the midst of which we find ourselves, is to live in today of the journey. Every day is a day in which God has things to teach us, transformation to make. Tomorrow will come when we are ready for it. Today is enough!
