Parenting with the Lord's Prayer: Don't Worry

Give us today our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11 NIV)

Praying for our "daily bread" includes everything we worry about on a daily basis – our health, our finances, our schedule, our future, all the things we have to deal with.

In today’s society, our children have a lot to worry about. So it’s our duty to teach them how God can replace their worry with his provision.

Now our normal reaction to worry is to find a way to control the situation. That’s just our nature. We figure if we can control everything, then we’ll never have to worry. But when we try that approach, the opposite happens. We find out that we can’t control everything, so we end up worrying.

The real way to deal with worry is to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” Praying for our “daily bread” includes everything we worry about on a daily basis – our health, our finances, our schedule, our future, all the things we have to deal with. God says, “If you want less stress in your life, then you have to relax in me and let me give you your daily bread.”

It’s important that we teach our children that it’s daily bread, not weekly or monthly. We want God to give us everything we need for the next five years, just put it in a bank account so we can see it’s there and not worry. But God doesn’t do it that way. He gives us just what we need one day at a time because he wants us to live in a daily relationship of trust in him.
So we need to teach our children three basic truths about God’s provision:

1. God can meet every need you’ll ever have because he’s God.
2. God wants to meet our needs, not our greeds, because he’s a loving father.
3. God will meet our needs as we trust in him moment-by-moment, day-by-day.

by Tom Holladay