Life’s Struggles
It occurred to me the other day while saying the Lord’s Prayer, during my morning personal quite time, that God knows what our three basic struggles are in life. We have to deal with a number of chores, schedules, and meetings in our daily walk, and they can all present various challenges. But He knew we needed His involvement, for the day, in obtaining our necessary provisions, dealing with someone crossing over the line into our life, and facing various temptations.
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
God is always working and knows what we need before we need it. In addition to all the guidance He provides through the scriptures, our basic daily needs come to us through His daily provision. Matthew 7:7&8 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” We have many needs each and every day. God’s desire is to provide those needs because He loves us.
A lot of people can’t seem to resist popping open the fortune cookie when they get Chinese food. And we are all desperate for some kind of guidance other than using our occasionally miscalculating brain. But how many of us actually take the time every day to seek out the perfect guidance that God instructs us to ask Him for? It is there for us to receive daily and all we have to do is stop and get it – for free. One would guess better guidance might help our success rate. Like Christ said to Satan – Matthew 4:4 “We don’t live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
None of us like getting cut off while driving and I have to confess I occasionally do it to other people unintentionally. We all make mistakes and sometimes we negatively impact others when our emotions get the best of us. God knew we would damage each other daily and he told us we have to forgive others for their trespasses against us so we can continue to have peace in our personal lives. If I don’t forgive somebody of something, I end up thinking about it a lot and it continues to irritate me. Until I let that hurtful trespass go through forgiving them, I don’t get my peace back. God help us to learn to forgive each other so we can have peace. Psalm 34:14 “Seek His peace and pursue it.”
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Our bodies give us all kinds of information on whether or not we are tired, hungry, hot, or cold. Those messages from our bodies keep us alive and sustain us daily. And our body also likes to seek satisfaction, for example, from a piece of chocolate, scoop of ice cream, a warm fire, or even pleasure from someone other than our spouse. That’s why we pray “deliver us from the evil one.” Ephesians 6:12 We don’t “…wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, rulers, and the powers of darkness…..”
God’s three fundamental areas of daily focus for us are: our daily bread, forgiveness, and leading us away from temptation.
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