Give Us This Day

¹“Give us this day our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11). Most of us just take it for granted that we have another day stretching out before us each time that we wake up. After all, the new day comes whether we want it to or not. But how might we treat our day differently if we actually asked God to give us this day? Wouldn't we try to use our time more wisely if we more fully appreciated that it doesn't just happen automatically but instead is given to us? When we go through near death experiences or are cured of certain diseases or are otherwise saved from intolerable conditions, we do sometimes get a sense of the preciousness of life. But we so often adapt to changes that eventually that humility and gratitude starts to fade away and we again sink back into the groove of simply expecting without any kind of gratitude that a new day has come. But we can still make the choice to treat the present day as a special gift. We can wake up each morning and ask the Lord to give us this day. It is true that many of us would just as rather not take this day and may even be resentful that we have no choice in the matter. If we know that the day ahead of us is full of pain and suffering, it may feel dishonest to ask God for this day when we really don't want it. But if we keep making the choice to ask God to give us this day, we will shape and mold our minds and hearts to treat each day with a sense of humility so that even on the days that are really bad, we can fall into the groove of being grateful for even these less than awesome gifts. There is virtue and power in asking for and gratefully receiving each new day, no matter what that day looks like. I hope we will all choose to ask God to give us this day.