Dear Fellow Believers,

In one of our recent lessons in our Adult Instruction Class, we were speaking about the 4^th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer “Give us this day our daily bread.” We were speaking about passages of the Bible which encourage us to trust in the Lord for our daily bread, and the need for us to walk by faith, not by sight and to keep our eyes fixed above, not below for all that we need. Fixing our attention on the wrong things or in the wrong places does not result in living with the comfort and peace that our Lord has brought us through our baptism. Our eyes need to be looking upward to our Heavenly Father, for the death and resurrection of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ is all the proof we need that God is the source of all grace and blessing in our lives, that He loves us, cares for us and is able to meet our EVERY need!

In class, a very familiar example was presented that greatly amused me. It packed a spiritual lesson for us who so often have our focus misplaced. I’ll bet many of you who have a dog or who have been around families who have a dog can relate to this picture!

One of our classmates told the story that every time she would go to her kitchen counter to chop fruits or vegetables, prepare meat or fix something to eat, her dog would immediately come, stand at her side and look straight ahead at the bottom cupboard door. In spite of the fact that she was there and the food was actually above on the countertop, the dog did not look up. He only stood there by her side, staring at the wooden cupboard door. The hilarious part was that her dog would stay there looking straight ahead at the cupboard indefinitely unless she prompted him to do differently! If you’ve ever had this experience, then you know how humorous it is to see a dog standing and devoting its full attention to a cupboard door… especially when the very thing he wants - the food - is found above, on the countertop, and can only be received through his master! This example was a real teaching moment, for we realized that both of us had indeed experienced this very behavior before - and not only by watching other dogs!

Because of the fallen human nature we inherited at birth, all of us know that the dog’s behavior in this example is most descriptive of our very own behavior much of the time! We have heard that God is the Giver of our daily bread, but our sinful nature causes us to be easily distracted, to set our sights on that which is immediately seen, rather than looking with trust to our Heavenly Father who is the source of all blessings. So instead of looking up to our Heavenly Father to provide for our wants and needs, we focus on the cupboard door before us: our job, our own strength, our savings, our knowledge of who we know or what we know. Like a dog staring indefinitely at a wooden cupboard door, we need God’s help and prompting to look up to Him.    

God gives us the very help and prompting we need in His Gospel. In the Good News we are reminded of His tremendous track record in sending our Lord Jesus Christ to Calvary to shed His blood and take away our sins. In Jesus He forgives us for the times we have merely set our sight on things below rather than things above. In the Gospel we remember that God also caused Jesus to rise again from the dead. With the promise of eternal life in heaven, we are given a reason to look up. He works resurrection power within us through His Word and Sacrament so we trust Him and set our sights on Him! Working confidence in Him in our hearts, God moves us from setting our sights on secondary things to looking first to Him and declaring from our heart: “I WILL lift up my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of the heavens and the earth (Ps. 121).”

In these more difficult days, rejoice that as a baptized believer, God is continually prompting us to set our sights on Him and His gracious and loving care for us in Jesus Christ. In Him we truly “live, move and have our being.”

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Randy