What to pray when you have cancer III

Due to the Memorial Day holiday last Monday I did not receive my chemotherapy treatment until last Tuesday.  Amazingly (to me at least) this delay of one day radically interfered with my work and my life.  I was unable to work and thus unable to preach on Sunday.  Thank you to my associate Steve (and his family) who ably filled in for me.  I was able to care for Jared on Saturday and Sunday but not much else.


I began last week to seek to make the point that Jesus has told us what we are to ask God to do in every circumstance of our life, even when we have cancer.  He has done this by giving us what is commonly referred to as "The Lord's Prayer."  I've talked about the first three petitions in previous posts.  Today, the fourth petition in the Lord's Prayer is "Give us this day our daily bread."  There are a number of questions that this apparently simple request pose.  First, what does Jesus mean by "bread"?  I love Martin Luther's description of bread in his Small Catechism.  He writes: "Bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbours, and the like."  Thus Jesus wants us to ask our Father in heaven to provide everything we need to sustain and maintain our physical, social, cultural, political life on this planet.  Obviously this would include the request that God would be pleased to kill the cancer in my body and to heal my son of his brain injury.


The use of "bread" is also instructive in that Jesus is clearly expecting that we will evaluate our requests in terms of need vs. want.  In Jesus' culture bread is the most basic of needs for sustenance.


A second question is this: if we do not ask God to supply all of our needs does that mean we will go hungry or homeless or get cancer?  The Bible repeatedly says that God gives "all men life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:25.  The Psalmist says, "The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.  You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing (Psalm 145:15-16)."  Jesus says about his Father in heaven, "he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45)."  Not only does God say that he is going to provide for all humans whether they pray or not but he also says, in particular, about us that he already knows what we need without our asking (Mattthew 6:8 & 32).  So if God knows what we need and has already committed himself to giving all humans what we need then why does Jesus command that we ask God to give us what we need for life on this planet?

There are several reasons.  First, what would it say about a child who never asked his or her parents for anything he or she needed?  It would be an act of contempt and disdain for his or her parents.  An entirely independent child is a child who has forgotten who she is and who her parents are.  For a Christian to not ask God to provide is an act of unbelief in the goodness of God and an act of rebellion against him.  Second, as every parent teaches his or her children when you ask for something and it is granted to you, what do you say?  "Thank you" is the appropriate response for favor given in response to request.  Thus we are to ask God to give us our daily bread so that we will not forget to thank him when he provides for us.  Third, asking God to provide our daily bread is an act of faith in God's sovereign goodness.  It is an acknowledgement that he is in control of everything that is happening on this planet.  It is a confession that God is the owner and ruler and sustainer of this world.  Thus, asking him to provide is an act of worship, of ascribing honor to him as the only one who has the right and the power to give this world's good gifts to us.

A third question: Why does Jesus emphasis "this day our daily bread?"  Jesus aims for us to pray about our daily needs as means to combat two of our greatest sins: greed and fear.  The emphasis on "daily" reminds us to not pray for the accumulation of money and possessions "for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions (Luke 12:15)."  We are to ask God for what we need to live today, not for what we will need to live tomorrow.  As Jesus says later in Matthew 6, the unbelieving world runs after all these things but we, in contrast, are content with having our needs for physical life met (See 1 Timothy 6:6-10).  Fear is a powerful and destructive emotion which is most often associated with our future condition.  Thus, concentrating on what we need today and asking our Father to provide it will be an antidote to fear of the future. 

Does it mean it is wrong to pray for future concerns?  Would it be wrong to ask God to provide adequate financial resources for our now 5 year-old child to go to college?  Would it be wrong to ask for that same child that God would provide a faithful Christian spouse in the future?  Would it be wrong for the farmer to ask God to supply the right measure of rain through the growing season as he finishes planting his crops in the spring?  While I do not think it wrong to pray for future needs (Paul asks the Roman Christians to pray for a successful future visit to Jerusalem, Romans 15:30-33), yet most of our prayers regarding our needs in this world are to be focused on the near term, not the long term.

Fourth, what is it "our" daily bread?  We are not to only be concerned for our own private needs but the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ are also to be regularly brought before our Father.  Jesus means for us to ask our Father to meet the needs of the rest of his family, not just our needs.

Finally, does Jesus commanding us to pray this prayer mean that we will never go hungry, that we will never get cancer, that we will never be homeless?  The answer is no, this is no promise of a middle class lifestyle in American.  It is not promise that we will not go hungry.  How can I say this?  Jesus prayed this prayer and he was homeless (Matthew 8:20).  Paul prayed this prayer and he was hungry and often without food and homeless (2 Corinthians 11:27).  We pray this prayer and our heavenly Father promises to provide us with everything we need to live upon this earth in the circumstances that will most bring glory to him and eternal good to us for as long as he wills that we live upon this earth.  He has a plan for us that includes all the sufferings and losses of this life and our asking him to provide all that we need shows that we actually believe he is in control and will do what needs to be done for us.  It prepares us to gratefully accept whatever circumstances in which he places us.