Article November 12, 1932 ISSUE

"Give us this day our daily bread"

ISOBEL LILLIAN ROBINSON

WHEN the disciples saw the works that Jesus was able to perform through his life of earnest prayer, one of them said to him, "Teach us to pray," and in response he taught them the prayer which Mrs. Eddy describes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 16) as "that prayer which covers all human needs." They proved that they had glimpsed the spiritual meaning of this prayer, for it is recorded that they said to the Master, "Even the devils are subject unto us through thy name."

When they failed to heal a certain case, and inquired of Jesus regarding their inability to heal it, they were told that "this kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." They knew that their Master had spent long hours in the watches of the night in communion with his Father, and they had seen the results of his consecration; for he healed all manner of disease and raised the dead.

One student has been uplifted and refreshed by the contemplation of the petition in the Lord's Prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread." Down the centuries this cry has come from the mentally and physically hungry multitudes without receiving a satisfactory answer, for it has been uttered largely from a material plane of thinking; and therefore God has been unjustly blamed for all the difficulties and discord of the human race. Recognition and increasing knowledge of God as good enable one to see that God's law, understood as Jesus knew it, means progressive, productive, harmonious, continuous activity in every detail of our lives; and knowledge of good begin to unfold when we grasp, however faintly, the deeper meaning of prayer which is lifted above the petition for the satisfying of personal desires.

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