By Dan Jenkins
God has not promised us T-bone steaks for every meal, but He has promised us that He will provide the food for us.
He provided the food for Elijah during the 42 months of famine. With Ahab and Jezebel seeking to destroy this prophet, God supplied him food the entire time. As long as the brook Cherith had water, the birds brought him two meals each day with bread and meat. When the drought became so severe that the brook dried up, God provided him and the widow of Zarephath with food.
He provided food for the Jews on their forty-year journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Before they arrived at Mt. Sinai, He gave them manna in the morning and quail in the evening (Ex. 16:13). The psalmist described it this way, “He also rained meat on them like the dust, feathered fowl like the sand of the seas” (Psa. 78:27). As soon as they entered the Promised Land, the manna ceased (Josh. 5:12).
David understood that God would provide food for His people. “I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread’ (Psa. 37:25). Think of David who spent years fleeing from King Saul. Yet in spite of all the adversity the evil king brought into David’s life, God took care of him. God provided the food he needed. David saw that God fed His people.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a great contrast between how saints look toward food and the way that unbelievers look at it. “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all of these things the Gentiles seek” (Matt. 6:31-32). Those who are not God’s children must, of necessity, be fearful that they might not have food. Those empty shelves in Publix are a major concern to them. Our Lord says that we should not have a single concern and then He gives the reason. “For your heavenly Father knows you have need of all these things.”
Later in that sermon, Jesus discussed how an earthly father would not give a stone to his child who asks for bread. The Lord’s prayer says we should ask every day for daily bread and with firm assurance He will provide. “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will you Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him” (Matt. 7:11)!
Our godly grandparents dealt with the Great Depression and not one of them starved. How did this happen? Because they took seriously the final thing Jesus said about this. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” Think about this in these trying days as you pray that He will provide daily bread.