Give us day by day our daily bread.
—Luke 11:3
Some Christians are afraid that a promise to pray every day is altogether beyond them. They could not undertake it, and yet they pray to God to give them their bread “day by day.” Surely if a child of God has once yielded himself with his whole life to God’s love and service, he should consider it a privilege to take advantage of any invitation that would help him every day to come into God’s presence with the great need of His church and kingdom.
Many confess that they desire to live wholly for God. They acknowledge that Christ gave Himself for them and that His love now watches over them and works in them without ceasing. They acknowledge the claim that nothing less than the measure of Christ’s love for us is to be the measure of our love for Him. They feel that if this is indeed to be the standard of their lives, they surely ought to welcome every opportunity for proving each day that they are devoting their hearts’ strength to the interests of Christ’s kingdom and to the prayer that can bring down God’s blessings.
Our invitation to daily, united prayer may come to some as a new and perhaps unexpected opportunity of becoming God’s remembrancers who “cry out day and night” (Luke 18:7) for His power and blessing on His people and on this needy world. Think of the privilege of being allowed to plead every day with God on behalf of His children, for the outpouring of His Spirit, and for the coming of His kingdom that His will may indeed be done on earth as it is in heaven. (See Matthew 6:10.) To those who have to confess that they have scarcely understood the high privilege and the solemn duty of waiting on God in prayer for His blessing on the world, the invitation ought to be most welcome. And even to those who already have their special circles for which to pray, the thought that their vision and their hearts can be enlarged to include all God’s children, all the work of His kingdom, and all the promise of an abundant outpouring of His Spirit, should urge them to take part in a ministry by which their other work will not suffer, but their hearts will be strengthened with a joy, a love, and a faith that they have never known before.