Recently, my younger sister got married. It was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve ever been to. But amid the joy and wonder that came with the special day, there was also deep insecurity and longing brewing within me. I’d been praying with this desire for years, waiting for the Lord to answer. The prayer seemed to ping-pong inside my heart: When will it finally be my turn to be a bride, a wife, and a mother?
Shortly after the wedding, when I brought this to the Lord, His invitation was simple – Let me satisfy you for right now. It went hand in hand with a penance I received in confession around this same time, to pray the Our Father and really rest in the Lord’s “daily bread” for me.
While on the outside I prayed the simple words of the Lord’s Prayer, in my heart I was grasping for crumbs. Instead of taking time to focus on where God is leading with His daily bread for me, I flipped open every recipe book imaginable to try making my own bread: something substantial, something thick and hearty – but inevitably, it didn’t satisfy. White-knuckling it can lead us to a scarcity mindset of looking for our own sustenance because we’re worried God is going to leave us starving.
However, when we pray “give us this day our daily bread”, we are invited into the disposition of Jesus in the Gospels: one of openness, surrender, and trust that God will give us what we need today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not 10 years from now. Today.
Jesus never worried about His physical hunger. He also never worried about what would happen to Him, because He knew that He was infinitely loved by the Father who sent Him. I imagine that when Jesus prayed the line “give us this day our daily bread,” He meant it. Everything He did was framed by the fact that God was sustaining Him.
Where Jesus is the embodiment of this complete surrender, I still balk at the thought of potentially not getting my way. But thanks be to God, He continues to love us and invites us into a deeper relationship of trust that He only has good things for us. To commit to relying solely on our daily bread means that we set aside all our backup plans and submit ourselves to His plan for the moment.
After teaching His disciples how to pray, Jesus takes things one step further: He challenges His disciples to have a disposition of active receptivity. He tells the disciples, “Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you” (Luke 11:9). God doesn’t want us to passively receive our daily bread. He wants us to actively receive.
However, ‘actively receiving’ can be easier said than done, especially when what we ask for and what we do receive do not line up. It’s like an act of falling in love and growing in a relationship with another person. We can never be totally sure that the other person will always be the kind, loving person we know them today. Opening ourselves to a relationship means that we open ourselves up to potential hurt and pain. In the same way, actively receiving can look like willing yourself to be vulnerable and open with God about your dreams and desires, all while knowing that God’s dreams and desires for us may look different.
He wants to engage with us in a relationship so real and raw that we can open our hearts in our asking, searching, and knocking – and what comes about from that is His prerogative, the daily bread destined for us today.
St. Ignatius of Loyola has a beautiful prayer called the Suscipe, which is Latin for “receive”. It’s an apt response to receiving whatever daily bread that God has for us. As we pray at the end of the Suscipe, “Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.” Notice that the prayer doesn’t ask for more things – more time, more money, more health – but only the love and grace He has for us.
Today, I invite you to pray these words with me: God, I release everything back to you and rely solely on what you are giving me for the moment. I will ask, search, and knock, and trust that what you give to me is what is necessary right now.
What remains is a radical trust that God never overwhelms and never shortchanges. The daily bread He has for you and me is sufficient, and I pray that we take the time to enjoy the bread that He gives us.
Reflection on Luke 11:1-13