Devotions from Haase’s book, Living the Lord’s Prayer

As we pray “Give us this day our daily bread” we come to recognize our dependency and the futility of preserving and protecting self-concern, self-image, self-preservation and self-gratification.

Our ego tries to convince us that what is really important in life is based on what we have, what we do and what other people think of us. If we buy into the illusion we begin to take charge and become manipulative and demanding.

This independent self-sufficient approach is the refusal of grace and the failure to acknowledge God as the giver of all things. 
Self-sufficiency can only take us so far as sooner or later we run up against a brick wall and find out we are dependent after all.
“Growth in the spiritual life is measured by our awareness of our absolute dependence on Abba and our continual petition for daily bread.”  A great paradox: “ to mature is to become a child, poor, needy, helpless and dependent”. This is just another way of saying everything is a gift.