The Lord's Prayer
by
Bishop Hugo Lj. Odhner

    Nothing can be preserved except by perpetual creation, by continual renewal and growth. Hence there is nothing static or permanent, but all things are in a constant state of change and flux. Even matter itself is but a complex of intricate activities maintained by a spiritual influx. The tissues of man's body wear out and must be restored through the food brought by the blood and inhaled from the atmospheres. We die and are born again with every breath. Through our soul, creative life pours into the body to reform and heal. And as the mortal body is fed by earthly food, so the mind, the immortal spirit, is fed by the food of heaven.

    All this comes to mind when we pray the heavenly Father to give us each day our daily bread. We ask not alone for bread or food, but for protection, preservation—for fresh air and shelter, for heat and clothing, for a place to work in and to rest in, a field of usefulness. We ask for the protection of civil law, for a measure of freedom and the enjoyment of social intercourse and the communion with other minds. We ask for health and knowledge, for appreciation and love. All the things that our hearts hunger for, are to us "our daily bread."

    These blessings come to us on the wings of time—come either as free gifts or as the result of toil and struggle. The Lord leads men to uses by their longings and ambitions. But secretly as well as openly He directs our minds towards greater things than the passing needs of mortal life. "Labor not for the meat that perishes," He tells us, "but for that meat which endures unto eternal life." "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."

    The body is indeed the temple of the spirit, and as such its claims must be respected. Man's opportunities for usefulness depend on his own state of physical and mental fitness. By his obtaining knowledge and training his talents are multiplied. But his foresight about self-development must be the servant of charity. He must not put his heart on riches, luxuries, or honors, but must value them only as tools by which he can perfect his spiritual and natural usefulness.

    Normally, that which enters through the mouth does not defile a man; nor does the passing knowledge about evil cause any harm unless it stirs an unwholesome delight in his heart. But there are many things that glut or poison our minds, even as the pleasures of taste may seduce us to overindulgence and invite physical disorders. The knowledge we select to feed our imagination may not be the wholesome sustenance, which our spirit craves for its health and growth. Presentation of coarseness, brutality and impurity will blunt a child's tender perceptions. It will also confuse the adult's understanding by arousing sensual passions. To expose children to falsities about God is like depriving them of all spiritual milk (TCR 23). Much of the mental food imbibed as delightful entertainment or offered as doctrine by the Scribes of our day contains suggestions which subtly pervert our ways of thinking, fascinate us with doubts based on appearances, fill us with intolerance, uncharitable suspicions, or unworthy fears, undermine our ideals and our faith in revealed truth, breed impatience and cynicism and stifle the zeal for spiritual uses. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees," saith the Lord. Woe to them that "strain at gnats but swallow camels," or who "give stones for bread and serpents for fishes," and make us believe that the thoughts of man are the water of life!

    "But the Lord offers living water. He offers Himself as the "bread of life." He says, The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and are life."

    It is not the mere knowledge of His words that is meant by the bread of life. Knowledge is only the raw material from which spiritual food can be prepared. Unless a flame of affection warms the cold words of doctrine into a savory food that rekindles the energies of the spirit, the mind becomes easily satiated and sometimes nauseated with instruction.

    The Word often speaks of the food of spiritual life. This is what is meant by the food which Noah had to store in the ark before the great Flood, and by the grain stored by Joseph in the cities of Egypt before the seven years of famine. From infancy the Lord provides it in abundance, as innocence and simple faith, as the seeds of all future happiness and understanding. He stores it so deeply within the mind that man cannot reach in and dissipate it. It comes to the surface only when man is in forgetfulness of self. It is locked up for emergencies which the Lord alone foresees; and released when man begins to feel a spiritual hunger which we know as a love of truth. Then it comes down as manna from heaven.

    Man's spirit is organic, and is constantly growing and changing. Old states, when their function is completed, are cast into oblivion, and new states are formed by means of new truths and new affections, or by what man considers as truths and goods. There is no nation or people with whom something of spiritual knowledge is not provided. Without this, spiritual life languishes and regeneration is arrested at its start. The spirit of man cannot grow without the goods and truths of faith. It is out of goods and truths—civil, moral, and spiritual that the spiritual body, the immortal spirit, is formed. (TCR 583)

    To our natural thought, "good" and "truth" appear as unreal abstractions, not substantial enough to serve as spiritual food and drink! Yet it is our delights and affections, our perceptions and intuitions, which give essence to our life! The Lord thus told His disciples, "I have meat to eat which ye know not of... My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me." And in the spiritual world, where there is nothing material, the delicacies which angels eat and which are seen on their tables as manifestly as material food on ours, consist of spiritual aliments only forms of knowledge, affection, intelligence, and wisdom, such as alone can nourish the mind. If only material things are regarded as real, we would be like certain strangers in the world of spirits who came to a laden table and yet saw no food! (LJ post. 338)

    But those who "hunger and thirst after righteousness," shall surely be filled. They who long for a better understanding of the purposes and duties of life and for a purer heart, may see the sphere of charity reach out towards them from all sides, offering them refreshment of spirit. They discern the bread of heaven in the abundant truths of the Lord's Word. They see how the Lord prepares a table before them even in the valley of shadow, in the presence of their enemies, so that their cup runneth over. For wherever men live according to the truth and do His will, there charity and use are theirs for the seeking, with delight and food for the soul.

    But man is slow to grasp these opportunities. We often spurn what lies before us, and look for other charity than that which is shown us. We then prefer the leaven of the Pharisees, seeing the shortcomings of our neighbor rather than his virtues. Or, we would have the whole before we can appreciate the part. We wish for instant fulfillment of heavenly happiness, leaving untasted the partial fulfillment which comes as a reward for uses done, and wishing a heaven on earth without walking the narrow way that leadeth unto life more abundant

    But the Lord tells us to pray, not, "Give us bread!" but "Give us this day our daily bread." A wise father does not give a child his entire patrimony at once. Our heavenly Father grants us spiritual food in abundance, but only as much as we can receive and are able to use. We cannot ask Him for the bread of heaven only to lay it aside unused, or in order to hoard it and hide it. But we ask to be sustained in the tasks immediately ahead, ask for strength and illustration in the state we are commencing to enter, for a clearer perception of the spiritual uses involved in our earthly duties. For in the spiritual world there is no food given to the indolent or to the evil, except as a remuneration for work done. And angels, who are in the love of uses, receive food and other necessities freely, but always in correspondence with their functions. (SD 6088, Love xii:3)

    Neither men nor angels need to take any anxious thought about the morrow. The far-flung future is in the Lord's hands. He alone knows the eternal use to which His providence leads us as by a hidden current. But neither can we depend on past states of illustration or affection. Whatever gain was made in the past will indeed add firmness and momentum to the uses of today. Yet the ardor of Yesterday cannot be stored up, for it was an influx which we "cannot tell whence it cometh or wither it goeth." The riches of heaven cannot be wrapped up and taken along, any more than the manna, which Israel found fresh with each morning's dew, could be preserved over night; or any more than the meat of the sacrifices could be kept for the next day.

    But the Lord provides food for the hungry. Hunger comes when the energy stored in the cells of the body has been used up converted into action. Spiritual hunger, which is a longing for good and truth, arises when man feels the need of spiritual renovation; and each new state must be initiated by a prayer for daily bread as an expression of such hunger. Then, if man has stored his understanding with the teachings of the Word, this knowledge is converted into food—digested by meditation and assimilated by rational judgment to strengthen the tissues of the new will.

    It appears as if knowledge gave life and sustenance to the mind, even as it appears that material substances built the body. But it is really the soul which organizes the body; and it is really a spiritual influx from the Lord that organizes the truths from the Word into vessels receptive of life from heaven. These truths are not mere undigested knowledge such as lodges in the memory, but truths of life which go to form a new will that receives the good which truth invites.

    This "good of truth" is doctrine which has been put into life, and this is what is meant by the manna which fell from heaven. But it is also told that the manna began to breed worms when more was taken than was eaten during the day. For whatever of spiritual truth that enters man interiorly beyond the capacity of his new will to receive and hold, would soon be profaned by overflowing into the sensual will of his old proprium (AC 5145, 8480). It is therefore a law of Providence that the will—the heart of man's spirit—shall receive such spiritual food only in proportion as man repents of his evils and removes them from his conscious mind; and that one shall be admitted interiorly into the truths of wisdom and the goods of love only so far as he can be kept in them to the end of his life (DP 232).

    This providential guard against profanation is revealed so that man should not be deterred from his duty to seek daily for the knowledge which the Lord offers in His Word of Scripture and Doctrine, for the salvation of his soul. The nearer danger is that man finds it hard to leave the fleshpots of Egypt for the manna of the wilderness. But if he feels despondent when the sun waxes hot and the manna dissolves into mist, there are also quails from the sea which settle on the camp at evening tide. Every use performed by angels and men has its legitimate natural pleasure which, if held in its proper place, lends variety and perfection, rest and recreation, to their lives, by presenting the beauty, the glory and the magnificence of their uses in the natural settings of social and domestic enjoyments (AC 8487).

    But where there is no spiritual conscience to hold the love of pleasure in leash, men come to despise the manna of heaven. The lust after "quails" engenders a creeping plague of spiritual paralysis and stupor. Their lips may still pray for daily bread, but their minds are weighed down by the anxious cares for the morrow and they are consumed with envy for many things which are not necessary either for their uses or for their happiness (HH 278).

    In heaven it is not so. The angels do not care for the past nor think with concern about things to come. In this lies their happiness, that they live content in the present (AC 2493). And this is one of the secrets of life. If we look for our duties and opportunities in the present, we shall find our delights there also. And the Lord, who is the First and Last, shall care for our tomorrows even as He gives us bread for today.