' Give us this day our daily bread'  (Matthew 6: 11)

to live, we need food, and we need it continuously. But to live as the Lord wills we need spiritual as well as natural food. The bread of this world feeds the body. The bread of heaven feeds the soul.

Unless we feed on natural food, we have no strength to do our work in the world. Similarly, without spiritual bread we have no strength to live as the Lord wills. How can we resist evil temptations unless we are spiritually nourished with the bread of spiritual life? Or how can we forgive seventy times seven when a difficult neighbour offends us? We just cannot do so without the bread of heaven. And we need it daily.

But daily does not only mean a period of twenty-four hours, it means also a period of experience like a state of trouble, or a state of gladness. And this bread we pray for will not only give us sustenance for the succeeding days and states of experience; it will also give us eternal life. For it is the goodness of our Father's love that comes down from heaven to feed His children. And Jesus tells us that they who feed on this bread will live for ever.

The more lovingly we read about our Father in His Word, the more we shall know about this Divine food. And the more, too, we shall hunger for it. It is in the Word that Jesus brings the bread to us, and in the Word that He takes, and blesses, and is made known to us.

Our Father in Heaven provides the bread, and He asks us to pray for a daily supply.

'I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever' (John 6, 51)