“God, Thank You For Our Daily Bread!”

“God Thank You For Our Daily Bread!”(Mt.20:1-16).
This is the first line I type every morning before penning down our MM: For a new day we thank you Lord. Amen!
We get up in the morning and pray, thanking God for a new day! Even when we do not directly pray for daily bread, it is nevertheless woven in the “for a new day we thank you Lord.”
“Give us this day our daily bread” is not an expectation of manna falling down from heaven. “Whoever does not work should not eat;” so the Holy Book says.
God meets people at a place where they usually gather, hoping to be hired. He negotiates the amount with the first people and hires them. He goes back there at different hours and recruit others without fixing the wage with them. The last group works for barely an hour.
At pay time he starts with those who were hired last. He pays them the same amount as he negotiated with the first group. The others become expectant of a higher pay. But no! He pays them the agreed amount.
He wants to fulfil to all of them their request for daily bread.
He doesn’t want to pay them commensurate to the hours of work each person has put in. He pays them so that each can be able to have his daily bread.
When you receive what you deserve, take it and be thankful. Do not look over your shoulder at what the other person has been given. Comparisons breed jealousy and grumbling.
Enjoy your daily bread and allow others to enjoy theirs too. God is not unjust. He has the right to his generosity; which by human estimation is a seeming injustice.
At the end of the day it is God’s grace that has to be sufficient for all of us.
I have barely closed my eyes this night due to an acute pain on my leg. There are many in similar or worst situations than mine. I don’t think anyone would be envious of us and wish that God should take some of our pains and give to them. So when God gives us too our daily bread with less work, do not be envious. There is space enough for everyone who makes it to God’s rendezvous!
Weekend prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for providing sufficiently for those who seek for daily bread. Amen!
Have a blessed weekend! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.