Moment By Moment
Pacific Northwest, May 2020
Take in a deep breath really quick. That oxygen going through your nostrils, filling your lungs, giving energy to all of the systems in your body—that is a gift from God. It’s not just the universe or nature; it’s God who sustains all things. If you want to know God’s very posture and feelings toward you today, take a deep breath and realize that His posture towards you today is to be loving, kind, and generous. God shows us how He feels by giving us the very air we need, and really everything we need, each moment.
Actually, that was the center piece of Jesus’ most famous sermon. The very center of the greatest teacher’s greatest teaching was this small moment where Jesus affirms the reality that God gives His people what they need. Do you remember His words? He actually taught His followers to talk with God about it:
When you pray, don’t babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask him.
“Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us today our daily bread. (Matthew 6:7-11)
This prayer has been prayed and repeated by millions of Christians for thousands of years. I’ve said it more times than I can remember, but recently, because of COVID-19, a lot of Scripture that has felt old and familiar has seemed so new and fresh again. “Give us this day our daily bread” is one of those fresh Scriptures to me.
Have you ever thought about that part of Jesus’ prayer? Jesus invites His followers to ask God for the sustenance that they need each day. It’s an invitation to be dependent on God, but in many ways, I want the opposite. I wouldn’t verbalize it, but in the back of my mind, I often try to live so self-sustained, so self-made, so self-sufficient. Yet Jesus invites His followers—He invites me and you—into a life that actually becomes more and more dependent upon God. Being dependent feels like a counterintuitive way to live, but what if that is actually the way to life?
The Greek work for “daily” is epiousios (ep-ie-oo-see-ohs). It does mean daily as in “today” or “present”, but much more specifically, it actually means “necessary for existence”.
In other words: God, give us this day the food that we need to exist. Give us what we need for right here and now. Give us what we need to make it moment by moment. Jesus teaches us that God wants to and does actually provide what we need for right now. God takes care of us moment by moment.
That sounds really simple and like a “no duh” statement. But think about it: God gives me what is necessary for this moment and, dare I say, this moment only. He has not yet given me what I need for the future or for tomorrow or even for later today. God has given me what I need for this moment. Right here and now, God provides the grace that I need, the attention I need, the peace I need, the joy I need, the hope I need. God takes care of me in this moment.
A lot of my problems in life stem from me getting too wrapped up in the future. They stem from me giving my present moment to my future worries. More specifically, a lot of my problems come because I really don’t trust that God is providing for me moment by moment.
COVID has given me plenty of time over the past weeks to think about my present and my future. Truth be told, COVID has had me in some serious introspective feels. Let’s be honest, being 28 and single while living alone and pastoring from home, it’s easy for me to get uptight about my present and my future.
I work with about a thousand college students in Seattle. For the past weeks I’ve processed dozens of fears, worries, losses, and griefs. All of them pretty legitimate. As I’ve listened to other’s stories and wrestled with my own, I’ve noticed that the question behind every question is, “Will God really take care of me? Will God really provide what I need moment by moment? Is He really generous and kind?”
When I am slow enough and honest enough to examine myself, I realize that there are places in the back of my mind that I'm not really sure that I really really trust that God is providing what I need moment by moment. I get concerned that God holding out on me. I'm not so sure that the things that God is withholding from me are things I don’t really need right now. I have moments where I struggle to trust that God sees, and is generous, and will provide moment by moment. That’s just me. What about you?
If you took a moment to examine your own heart or just reflect on your thoughts from the past few days, there may be a place where you’ve thought deep down, “God isn’t going to take care of (fill in the blank). God really isn’t that generous. He may be holding out on some good. He won’t provide moment by moment. He really doesn’t provide daily bread.”
And then what do we do from there? Well I devise plans on how to make it all happen myself. I imagine providing for myself moment by moment. I imagine making my whole life happen, which really only leaves me more uptight because then all of my life is up to me and all of my life is on my shoulders. And if COVID has shown me anything, it’s that so much of my life and so many of my moments are out of my control. I need God to take care of me and provide for each moment.
When I slow down though, I can realize and own that a lot of my fears, my frustrations, my problems, and my pain really all stem from me believing, deep down, that I have to make my life happen. They stem from me not trusting that God is going to take care of me moment by moment.
And it’s in light of those worries and those doubts that Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Jesus teaches us to both ask and recognize that God provides what we need for each moment. It’s interesting that Jesus’ most famous words on worrying about tomorrow come right after His most famous teaching on prayer, which may be to show that worry for tomorrow and prayer in the present are deeply connected. God provides what is necessary for existence right now and He provides our daily bread. We must learn to be present to that. Jesus doesn’t want us caught up in the future. He’s got that. He wants us right now, in the present, realizing that He is an ever present help in time of trouble. He takes care of us in the present. He takes care of us moment by moment.
I have been slowly reading through The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. In the book, an elder demon writes to a younger demon about the tactics of their Enemy, who is God. They say,
The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity… He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.
Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. … Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead… He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him…
We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present. (Lewis, ch.15)
God is taking care of us in the present moment, providing what we need moment by moment. Each moment is an opportunity to trust that Jesus both provides and even is our daily bread.
Imagine what our lives would look like if the baseline starting place of each thought was that God is generous and will provide what we need. What would that do to our fears and worry? What would that do to our compulsions and coping? What would that do to our anger and need for justice, to our sadness and grief, to our hopes and dreams?
Imagine what your life would look like if you took each moment to trust that Jesus will provide all you that need. God knows what we need and will provide what we need for each moment. He invites us to invite Him in to those needs and just ask and trust.
If you want to press into this a little more, take a moment to journal through these questions:
How has God showed up and provided for me in the past?
What would it look like for Him to show up and provide for me now?