Perhaps one of the things I struggle with the most is that I sometimes tend to overthink and complicate even trivial matters. I often find myself in a position where I fail to take a step or take action because I do not know what the next 10 steps after that would look like. I am someone who wants to almost see the end before I start the journey. I want to know the response before I ask the question. I want to picture the result before the work has been done. And when I cannot see this, I stall.

When I am overwhelmed and scared. When there are decisions to make and I feel I do not have the wisdom to make them. When I am anxious, tired or distracted. When I think about life and try to make a plan.

I want God to take care of these fears right away. I want God to show me all the details so that I know the best decision to make. To give me the satisfaction that fixes all my faults. To offer an upfront payment of provision that lets me know that this year, and the next five, will go well.

At the back of my mind, I know this is not how life works. I know this is not what God requires of me. When I was in college, I had printed out a poem called The Man at the End of the Year and pasted it on the wall so that each time I sat at my desk and looked up, I would be reminded to “go into the darkness and put [my] hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to [me] better than life and safer than a known way.”

But I am not there yet.

This morning, I was reminded of something I had heard a long time ago. It is contained in what is normally called the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus asked us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (emphasis added). We weren’t taught to ask for a yearly, monthly or even weekly ration. Rather, it was for this day. Not even tomorrow. Just this day. Today.

There is so much to unpack in that. But for today, for this moment, I just have to remind myself that the God who created the world and everything in it, the God in whom we live and have our being, the God who feeds the lions and the sparrows alike, desires for me to ask for daily bread. To trust Him for His provision. To trust Him for the future to come. To know that He will provide.

And perhaps that is the lesson I keep needing to learn. I do not need to see the end before I take the first step. I do not need to know what tomorrow’s bread will look like before I receive today’s. I do not need to have the whole journey mapped out before I begin walking.

Today, I  have today’s bread.

And perhaps that is enough.

For today, at least, I can stop trying to figure out the next 10 steps and simply take the first one.