The Best Way to Start a Monday [and Every Day]

“Lord, give me what I need today.”

I heard a speaker say he’s learned to begin every day with this prayer.

“Give.”

Often the hardest word to pray.

We would rather earn our own way, give back to God, plan out tomorrow, and dream big.

There’s nothing wrong with any of these things, except that we often forget to undergird it all with the prayer: “Give.”

Jesus told us to pray this way.

“Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11).

The God who told us it’s better to give than to receive is the God who prefers to give.

So we’re taught to pray that He will.

We’re to begin each day, praying “give” because He knows all the unknown needs of the day.

He knows our needs before we ask.

And He promised He will provide.

Jeremiah Burroughs once wrote:

“Christ does not teach you to pray, ‘Lord, give me enough to serve me for two or three years,’ but ‘This day our daily bread.’” (The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, p. 200)

Today is all we’re told to live, and the day we’re to pray for the most.

We work, we earn our way, we seek out His plans for tomorrow and ask Him to decide our dreams.

But undergirding our full lives, we ask Him to give.

He told us to.

He knows that left to ourselves, we would be nothing but destitute.

Every day we’re to pray, “Lord, give me what I need today.”

As we open our mouths this wide, He will fill them.

“I am the LORD your God . . .

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” (Psalm 81:10)