Thursday, November 6, 2014

Large Catechism: The Lord's Prayer, Fourth Petition

Read the Large Catechism with me.  
Ten-minute studies on short readings from the Large Catechism.  
Let's do this.
Click on the link below and read the short assigned reading.  Then, if you have time, check out what I have to say about it.  If not, no problem.  Just soak up the goodness of the LC.

The Lord's Prayer, Fourth Petition: Click here and read 71-84.

The basics:
- Give us this day our daily bread.
- In this prayer, we consider the necessities of the body and the temporal life.
- We are not simply praying for our own shelves to be stocked with food, but for the distant field and entire land to be fruitful.  If God did not cause it to grow, we could never take bread from the oven.
- There is a great need to pray for temporal authority and government, because although we have received of God all good things in abundance, we are not able to retain them in security or happiness if He did not give us a permanent and peaceful government.
- Those in the government are worthy of all honor, that we give to them for their office, because through them we enjoy what we have in peace in quietness.  We also pray for them that through them God may bestow on us more blessing and good.
- Luther gives a list of some of the things included when we pray for daily bread: food, drink, clothing, house, home, health of body, the grain and fruits of the field to grow and mature well, good housekeeping, the gift of godly spouses, children, and servants, that our trade or work be successful, faithful neighbors, good friends, wisdom and strength to all those in government roles, and obedience and peace to all subjects under the government; also that He preserve us from all calamity, as in lightning, hail, fire, flood, poison, pestilence, cattle-plague, war and bloodshed, famine, destructive beasts, and wicked men.
- All good things come from God, and must be prayed for by us.
- This prayer is also against the devil, because he wishes for no man to have even a morsel of bread or a moment of peace.
- Although God abundantly grants all these good things even to the wicked, He wishes we pray for them, in order that we may recognize we receive them from His hand, and may feel His paternal goodness toward us.

My thoughts today:
I am really glad God doesn't expect me to say the never-ending list of daily bread every time I pray the Lord's Prayer!  I would never have a moment to even enjoy one of them, and the reason is because He is such a gracious giver of our temporal needs.

Sometimes when my husband prays before a meal, he will pray for the food and then pray for all who had a hand in preparing it.  So, if we are having chicken, he prays in thanksgiving for me for cooking it, the store workers for stocking it, the truck drivers for taking it to the store, the chicken farmers for raising it, the grain farmers for growing the seeds to feed it, and God for making all this possible.  The first time I ever heard my husband pray this way, I was amazed.  I guess I never really thought about all the people who bless me with what I have.  God uses people throughout the world to put that chicken on my table.  Thanks be to God!

The same is true for this prayer - give us this day our daily bread.  In praying these words that He gave us to represent all this, we are praying for an endless list of people and vocations.  In His honoring of this prayer, He blesses me with a chicken and He blesses so many others with a job and way of life.

We really are a sorry lot of prayers.  We tire easily, we forget easily, and we fail to see the gifts God is giving us each day.  Thanks be to God that He knows we need these words to pray.  That when I say, "Give us this day our daily bread," I am praying for more than I could ever even think of on my own.