How He Provides
Each new year brings with it new resolutions. In this series, we take a closer look at the Lord’s Prayer to see how this daily practice can shape how we approach the change we want to see in our lives.
Scripture: Luke 11:3
Oftentimes, our prayers feel conditional, and this can make things difficult when we need to ask God for something. Whatever it may be that we need to ask God for, it is easy to get caught up in this feeling that we can’t come to Him until we put ourselves down first, or until we apologize a million times. It feels difficult to ask God for anything until we fulfill these conditions. However, in looking at our passage, we will see that this is far from what God has commanded us to do. He actually invites us to ask Him for provision, but how do we do that?
Well, our passage tells us that when we ask God for provision, we need to do so from a position of trust, and from a position of gratitude. Let’s talk about that.
Praying from a Position of Trust
First of all, when we pray, we need to trust that God will provide us with what we need, which sounds fairly straight forward. However, that doesn’t make it easy. So what makes it difficult? Let’s start by further defining what praying from a position of trust looks like.
A helpful example of this actually comes from further examining Jesus’s use of “daily bread,” which hearkens back to the time of the Israelites and their journey through the wilderness. In that time they had no food, and the only way that they could receive nourishment was through trusting that God would provide them manna every day. Exodus 16:4 defines manna as “bread from heaven,” and unless they relied on God to provide them this daily bread, they would starve to death.
Praying from a provision of trust means trusting that God will provide us with the essentials. We aren’t praying for cheese and wine, we are praying for daily bread, which is the most basic form of sustenance. So again, what makes this difficult? If you are in a time of need, then praying and trusting God with provision may not be the easiest thing to do, but as we talked about last week, it all comes down to what kind of God you are praying to. It is important to note that this passage is split into two sections: one section showing who we are praying to and another section showing how we should pray to Him. When we look back on that first section, Jesus intentionally starts off his prayer by calling God, “Father.” A father is someone we can trust to provide. A father is someone who’s provision isn’t reliant on how much we can offer. A father is someone who provides because of how much love he has for his children. So, are we praying to God like a father? Is the God we are praying to someone we believe wants to hear our prayers for provision? Praying from a position of trust is so important, but what is just as important is praying from a position of gratitude.
Praying from a Position of Gratitude
Now, don’t get me wrong, praying to God for provision is an important part of our prayer lives, but isn’t there something about it that can sometimes feel a bit off? It almost feels dishonest to tell God that we need Him to provide for us. How can I pray to God for provision when I have five things molding in the fridge at this very moment? Many of us in the West actually live in abundance, which can make praying for provision feel unneeded. However, that is far from the case. Even in times of abundance, praying for provision is still necessary for all of us, and to understand why, we need to understand what it means to pray from a position of gratitude.
The general mindset that we have nowadays is all about getting out what you put in. We are constantly concerned with putting in the work and getting the results, which can be a good thing, but it comes with some caveats. For one thing, it instills this mindset within us that everything we have is something we have earned through our own efforts. However, this prayer that Jesus is teaching to us goes completely against that kind of mindset. Jesus wasn’t just telling the needy people of his time to pray this prayer. There were also people who were living in abundance at that time, and this prayer was just as applicable to them as it is to all of us.
When we do pray this prayer and focus our minds on just the basics of life, it changes the way that we view everything we have and it changes the way we view our basic needs. When we pray in this way it shifts our mindset from viewing everything as something we worked hard to earn, to viewing everything as a gift from God. And when we view everything we have as a gift from God, our capacity for generosity gets that much better. We are no longer concerned with if what we have is enough, because our mindset then becomes, God is enough. That is what it means to pray from a position of gratitude.
Study questions:
Are you praying to a God that you trust with provision?
What are some things God has provided you that you can bring to Him in gratitude?
How does this mindset of gratitude change the way you view yourself and the world around you?
