Sometimes I challenge myself but more often I leave it to others to challenge me. Recently, I came across an observation made by someone else: the suggestion to pray for ‘our daily bread’ in the Lord’s Prayer is supposed to encourage us towards a daily trust in God to meet our needs. It challenged me because I know that even when I’m asking for my ‘daily bread’ I’m already thinking about what I’m going to eat tomorrow. I’m not in the habit of asking God to meet my daily needs, I’m in the habit of asking Him for a surplus so that I don’t have to worry about empty cupboards for the next few years. I wonder what would happen if all I ever asked for was just what I needed for that day? I know one thing it would change – It’d certainly be an incentive to check in with my heavenly Father at least once every twenty-four hours…
It made me think about ‘stuff’, why I worry about it and why I cling so hard to it. Sometimes I think I justify acquiring stuff by telling myself that it’s another resource I can use for God’s purposes. I’m not sure I’m being entirely honest with myself, and I wonder if – in my case – empty hands are more useful to Him.
I had a little thought last weekend. What if we get to heaven and God asks us to show Him our hands? What if everyone’s hands look the same – damaged and battered and bruised and scarred? But what if our hands aren’t the same? What if God knows that some of us have wounded hands because we’ve worked hard for Him, but others of us have wounded hands because we’ve been holding on to our treasure too tightly?
