Give Us This Day Our Daily Super Mario Brothers...

Not too long ago I was enjoying a day off at home when my son, Nate, approached me to tell me a secret.  The secrets he tells his mother and I are not actually secrets.  Nate thinks he is being sly, but in reality, we know exactly what he wants – to play Super Mario Brothers Wii.  He really enjoys this game and so do I for that matter, but if we let it up to him, he would be playing Mario for seven hours each day of the week. 

On this particular day, at this particular moment, we had already played more Mario than our brains should be exposed to.  So, as I have done so many times before, I responded that we were not going to play Mario anymore that day.  The reaction my response elicited from Nate was similar to professional mourners.  Deep wails of pain and agony rang through the house.  Nate can wail with the best of them.

I reached down and scooped him up into my arms to hold him like the little crying baby he was at that moment and sat down on the couch.  After a few moments, his sobs had abated so that I could engage him in conversation.  I like talking with Nate; he's a smart kid and can be reasoned with most of the time.  So, I tried to reason with him.

I told him that playing too much Mario or watching too much TV isn't good for his brain.  There are much better things to do.  Nate didn't care; his one desire was to play Mario.  I then tried to convince him that his mother and I have his best interests in mind, that when we tell him to do or not to do something, that we protecting him or guiding him in a good direction. 

It didn't matter.  He wanted to play Mario.  Change of tactics. 

Me: Nate, have you ever not had enough food?  

Nate: No.

Me: Have you ever not had a warm bed to sleep in?

Nate: No.

Me: Have you ever not had clothes to wear and shoes to put on your feet?

Nate: No. 

Me: Then, we've always taken care of you, right?

Nate: Yes.

Me: Then you need to trust us.  We know what's best for you.  We want what is best for you.  Please trust us! 

My line of reasoning didn't take too well.  Nate pouted for a while and then went on his way and found something else to do. 

For most of us, there is something very familiar with this exchange that I had with Nate.  It's about trust and faith and being provided for.  I think, if we are honest, we've all had this conversation with God.  Only, we're not me in the conversation, we're Nate.  To pray "And give us this day our daily bread" is, at least partly anyway, about that same trust and faith.

We all have needs, wants, and desires, and we often bring them before God.  Just as Nate's desire for Mario hadn't been filtered through his earthly father's vision of a good and properly ordered life, so also we don't often filter our desires and wants through the filter of God's Kingdom.  N.T. Wright begins his chapter on this portion of the Lord's Prayer by stating that we get to asking for our daily bread too early.  We tell God what we want and how we want it without spending some time to see if it falls into line with what God's vision is for our world. 

For Nate, playing Mario isn't a bad thing.  But playing too much Mario is.  For us, making money isn't a bad thing.  Neither is wanting to be successful in school or work or in love and family.  But making too much of those things, thinking too much of those things is. 

All too often, though, our wants and desires haven't been filtered through the other beginning portions of the Lord's Prayer.  We get around to asking for things before we've prayed for God's Kingdom to come and God's will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

Praying this part of the Lord's Prayer is about a confident hope that our needs, wants, and desires will be fulfilled in the ways in which God would have them fulfilled, rather than by our own ways and means. 

But, as we have learned, praying the Lord's Prayers isn't just about us and what God wants to do in us.  It's also largely about what God wants to do through us.