The Lord's Prayer Series / Daily Bread

What is essential to your life…something you can’t live without?
When I asked this question in a youth group chat, the responses included: Oxygen and Water, Family and Friends,  Hope, Love, and Goals, Spotify and Blankets.  (music and safe spaces!)
 
Bread was a staple, essential to life and a part of everyday living to the communities of people Jesus was a part of.  Life giving tasks were connected to daily bread.  Bread was affordable.  Bread was an daily activity.  Harvesting gain, grinding to flour, kneading the dough, molding the loaf, baking the bread, breaking the bread, and sharing the bread. 
 
It seems as if it is no mistake that the words of the prayer that Jesus gave to his friends as an example of how to pray would included something of such personal need and as commonly known as daily bread.  Bread was life.

However, it is the word daily  that for me is the most important and key word in this part of the prayer.
For me, connecting with God is also essential, a main staple to my everyday living and maybe for those who are also seekers of the Ways of God.
 
Isn't it interesting how purposefully creating space for something makes a huge difference to its possible accessibility?   I recently saw a meme on social media that made this very point.
Take this sentence…God Nowhere. 
Now, intentionally create some space between the letters and the result is…God Now Here.
It all depends on the space you are willing to create.
 
Making space to connect with God daily, kneading God into our daily lives, acknowledging that we don’t need much.  We don’t need anything extravagant, except God’s Goodness.   And like daily bread, we can make the seeking of God an activity of daily living and then sharing that gift of goodness with everyone.
 
The Lord's prayer when said together is a beautiful and collective prayer.  So, when we pray together…
Give us this day our daily bread, we are making a collective ask to make sure the most essential of daily needs of all are met.  
And, we can also pray for what is also essential to our daily living by praying, 
God, let us create space for You everyday,
Your presence is essential to our lives.  
Amen. 

My Lord's Prayer interpretation continues.  This has been a very enlightening practice of creating my own very personal prayer that embodies my unique personal connection with the God of my understanding, based on the prayer that Jesus taught his friends pray. 
Here is what has evolved after 6 weeks...

Our God, 
Who's art is heaven,
Holy is your name.
     Holy are you, Holy am I, Holy are we together. 
May Your radical Kin-dom come,
     A Divine collaboration between us, 
     In the here and now, and in the ever after. 
God, let us create space for You everyday,
     Your presence is essential to our lives. 

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