Our Daily Bread
Why is it that God doesn't back up the bread truck for us? Why is it that life seems to come so easy for some and for those that try to walk with the Lord, there seems to be times of want? For my new business, these are appropriate questions. I am three weeks into the transition. I am blessed beyond words. God has been the driver on this business from day one.

My new business partner is a man of strong faith and deep integrity. Our paths first crossed 14 years ago. My children are adopted. When we married, I knew then that there was a strong possibility that I would never be able to biologically father children. Shannon knew this going into our marriage. A few years into marriage, we realized that the doctors were right and so we tried invitro one time to see if God could use man to manipulate our bodies into producing a child. After one try, we knew and we started the adoption process. A short while later, our precious first born daughter came into our lives and three years later, our second daughter came home. God knew before the beginning of creation their stories and knew He would place them in our care as their parents. God knows best!

14 years ago, our daughter was about 6 months old and we were eating out on Valentines night. We got there early and had to sit in the bar area. The line was out the door while we were waiting on our food and I spotted my future business partner and his wife waiting in the hour-long line. We coaxed them into joining us. During our meal, we shared our story about our daughter and the miracle and blessing of adoption. They teared up and said they had just that day learned they would not be able to have biological children of their own. That was no accident. We walked with them through the adoption process and today they have two wonderful sons.

I tell you all that to say that I see God's hand in my new business back from 14 years ago. Sometimes in life (and especially in America) we want God's answers right now. As Americans, we think we are entitiled to it. We're not entitiled to anything. There will be more on the business in later posts but the set up is around our "daily bread".

I have just started a new study on Thursday mornings on Elijah. Ahab was a pagan, corrupt, immoral king. He married Jezebel for political purposes and she was worse than he was. God spoke to Elijah and told him to go to Ahab and tell him that because he was so corrupt, God would send drought for 3+ years on the land. God then gave Elijah very specific instrucitons on where he was to go to get bread, meat and water.

God settled Elijah by a brook and every day, ravens brought him bread and meat. God kept him there for a long while but slowly, the brook began to dry up to a trickle and then it went dry. Now, why would God do that? Next, God sent Elijah into Jezebel's own pagan homeland and instructed him to find a widow who would feed him. Elijah packed up and went and just as God promised, the widow cared for him. She had just a little flour and a little oil but she made him bread. Each day she would empty her flour jar and oil jug and each day, God would put just enough flour and oil back to provide for the next meal.

Why would God do this? Elijah was a good man and did exactly what God told him to do. He followed God each step along the way. Why then would God do this? Why not back up the bread truck for 'ol Elijah? Why not position him in such a way that he never had to worry about his daily bread?

He did position him. God had Elijah in His hand and all Elijah had to do was wait on God. God was going to provide for Elijah but He wasn't going to hand deliver him a bread truck.

What is the application for us? in my new business, I have to depend on God daily. He isn't going to hand deliver to me every single thing I need right away. By putting it in such a way that I -- HAVE -- to depend on Him, I -- CAN -- depend on Him. If He backs the bread truck up for us, how soon will we forget who is driving the truck?

This is a real problem in America. Our wealth is a curse because we have focused on the blessings of wealth vs. the provider of the wealth. It is a problem in the church. We build "campuses" and 5,000 seat worship centers so our CEO pastors can strut across the stage and lead "their" teaching ministries --- we forget who provides the blessings. The recent meltdown at Wynnbrook is symptomatic of this problem.

God gives us our daily bread for a reason. He craves a daily communion with us. Rather than fill our shelves with more than we need, He'd really rather prefer to show up at our door with the day's meal so we can sit down together and commune. What a good God He is!

Soar!