14th October 2026

Daily Bread

The parts of scripture I find difficult are not those I struggle to understand, but those I understand all too well. Take for example that core phrase in The Lord’s Prayer: ‘Give us today our daily bread’. It is an easy prayer for us in the comfortable west to pray, reminding us that our daily needs are met by our Heavenly Father, they must always be seen as a divine provision, notwithstanding the labour of human hand in getting this to our tables. But how many in our world today offer up the same prayers but remain hungry – whether because of climatic factors, basic poverty or uncontrolled warfare. Think for the moment of a family in the Gaza strip or in the horn of Africa. For us for whom that prayer is daily answered, there is a consequential urgent obligation to seek to rectify the situation whether by government action or by Christian Aid or other such partners.

But the same Lord who taught us how to pray, in John 6:35, says: ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst’. These words, prompted by Jesus’ feeding the 5,000, come in a long revelatory discourse in which Jesus declares that he, in his person, is the breath of life. Here again is divine provision now secured at great cost. In Christ a deeper hunger is met and a life-giving force encountered if only we act upon his promise. Again the gift brings with it an obligation to share the good news with others, and even as loaves need daily consumption to nurture life, so encounter with the Bread of Life needs regular contact to be effective.

Thus it behoves us to check on our daily diet: a healthy balance of protein and fibre with all the proper vitamins, healthily prepared with very little ready prepared dishes from the supermarket, matters which currently concern government in what is provided by school meals. But equally important is making space for quietness in which we come to God seeking the all-sustaining bread of life being regularly sought.

John Briggs