What if the bread I've asked for feels like a stone?

Our Father in Heaven.....give us today our daily bread.

To pray this way, I’m going to have to be convinced of at least two realities:

1. God is generous.
2. God is wise. 

I will have to believe God is generous and that God is wise and be convinced in my heart , before I will start to take Him up on His great and precious promises. Once I’m sure that God is generous and that God is wise, prayer flows more naturally.

  

OUR FATHER IS WISE.

Matthew 6 Verse 7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

But…………what if it feels as if God is giving me a stone, instead of bread? Is it because I have forgotten that God is wise and generous?

WE HAVE GREATER NEEDS THAT WE MAY NOT PERCEIVE OR VOICE OR VALUE.

2 Corinthians 12: 7 so to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

By the way, this thorn is not a tiny little thing you can pluck out with tweezers. God basically says "no" to Paul.

• My need is often to be weaned of my self-confidence and perceived self-power.
• My need is to be brought to the end of myself and found in that moment, to be strengthened by God, upheld by a generous and wise Father, giving me strength, giving me joy.
• My need is to get to that place where I can genuinely say: “Jesus is enough for me; God’s grace is enough for me.” 

But .....many a time I do not see that as a need.

When the bread I’ve asked for feels like a stone,

I need to remember God is wise and generous and

He will do something I have not even

started to imagine or thought of asking.

Yes, ask what you perceive as your need. At the same time, ask Him to give what He, in His generosity and wisdom knows what you need.

“This is what I think I need, Father, but please give me what You KNOW I need.”

• I can fully trust that when my Father withholds what I think I need, it is not for a lack of generosity, rather, it is an expression of His loving wisdom.
• This is not the time to blame God for withholding my request from me, but to thank Him that in His wisdom and generous love
• He saves me from my limited and narrow vision of what I see to be my needs.
• He is working out His good for me that I cannot even start fathom to ask for. 
• Prayer is pleading for the generosity and favours and blessings of God to be lavished upon our lives, while also surrendering to the wisdom of God.

 Here is a good biblical preaching link to JR Vassar's sermon  on Give us Today our Daily Bread.