“Ok, Jesus, here we are, and we have no money. How are we going to make it ‘til the 1st (when we get our next check)?” Erika and I prayed this together 12 days away from our next known support payment. Our support had been coming in at only 50% of its normal amount for the previous few months and had left us, literally, using the change from our change jar we use for groceries and other essential items. 12 days left and only $35 total in our bank account. This averages out to a budget of $2.91 a day.
Let’s be real. It is pretty tough to struggle like this financially, not knowing where the next day’s food will come from for your kids, or having to make the decision on whether to buy gas for the car in order to get to various essential places in the city, or whether we spend the money on food. Do I get the chicken, or do I get peanut butter and jelly? Can I afford the spaghetti, or do I need the loaf of bread more? These are the kinds of decisions our friends and neighbors make every day, and ones we have had to make the last few months as well.
I struggled internally with this question: “God, if our family has laid it all out there for you and for your gospel in this ministry for years, why are you allowing us to go wanting like this? Where is the Church? Why do I feel like a guilty beggar when asking for financial support for my family so that we can carry out the work you have given us to do? Aren’t we an extension of the Church?” It’s easy to start feeling sorry for yourself. Self-pity is a key indicator that God needs to change something in you, or that you need to adjust your expectations to line up with His.
As a man, it’s doubly hard to walk this line in mission. I’m hardwired to provide, to protect, and to lead my family. Yet, as a Christ-follower, there is a direct call to leave everything, to drop my “nets” and to “follow” Jesus, even if it means following Him into poverty. How does one survive and provide, and live with abundant joy in spirit while lacking in the daily essentials of life?
These questions, and more, were some of the questions that were brought into sharp contrast as we sought to live into our sabbatical journey that God had put us on. Yes, these are the same questions we have to ask each day in the midst of the intensity of ministry in our neighborhood, but for some reason it seemed easier to find answers there than while on sabbatical. Maybe the immense workload we dove into on a daily basis while on the field provided an easier justification for letting our need be known. Whereas our being on sabbatical made our situation more difficult to process. On sabbatical we were actually being called away into the wilderness for a time, a time of communion with God (or as Eyerusalem, our daughter, so aptly pointed out the previous Sunday, “I like communion because we get grape juice Daddy”), a rest. On sabbatical we were not able to point to our workload nor the daily pull of multiple people we were mentoring, nor the regular stories of God’s daily work he had given us to do as justification for our provision being met. On sabbatical, the “do” part is not nearly the same. So, these questions I had for God came pouring into my heart. I found myself struggling with feelings of resentment, even betrayal, when I looked into my bank account and saw zero. As our bills piled up with no way to pay them, I felt alone, discarded, thrown off, and abandoned.
But God doesn’t leave us there. As I listened to his gentle whisper, I was reminded and admonished that even in my lack I still possess so much more than most of the world. I was reminded that my “trust” in him should not stop when I don’t feel His presence or when I don’t see His hand in things as clearly as I would want. In fact, not seeing the answers clearly, and not knowing what comes next, is what defines “faith”. I was reminded that God had often given just enough to see us through, and that he often used some unlikely means to do so.
One day (about 7 days from the anticipated payday with only about $7 remaining to see us through that time) God began to remind me of the Lord’s Prayer where Jesus told us to pray “give us this day our daily bread.” He gently nudged my soul toward understanding more clearly that He was instructing us to simply pray for today’s provision. No more, no less. Then on that Sunday, as the pastor spoke about Moses, he mentioned the passage about the manna that was provided each day for the Hebrews. The only thing they needed to do was to walk out of their tent and collect it. But the story of Elijah provided the most striking image for me.
I Kings 17:1-6Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” 2 Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah: 3“Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” 5 So he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
I love how Matthew Henry, a theologian and writer from the 1700’s, explained this in the following commentary (Note: the underlined portion is what stood out for me.)
God wonderfully suits men to the work he designs them for. The times were fit for an Elijah; an Elijah was fit for them. The Spirit of the Lord knows how to fit men for the occasions. Elijah let Ahab know that God was displeased with the idolaters, and would chastise them by the want of rain, which it was not in the power of the gods they served to bestow. Elijah was commanded to hide himself. If Providence calls us to solitude and retirement, it becomes us to go: when we cannot be useful, we must be patient; and when we cannot work for God, we must sit still quietly for him. The ravens were appointed to bring him meat and did so. Let those who have but from hand to mouth, learn to live upon Providence, and trust it for the bread of the day, in the day. God could have sent angels to minister to him; but he chose to show that he can serve his own purposes by the meanest creatures, as effectually as by the mightiest. Elijah seems to have continued thus above a year. The natural supply of water, which came by common providence, failed; but the miraculous supply of food, made sure to him by promise, failed not. If the heavens fail, the earth fails of course; such are all our creature comforts: we lose them when we most need them, like brooks in summer. But there is a river, which makes glad the city of God, that never runs dry, a well of water that springs up to eternal life. Lord, give us that living water!
God reminded me that He had indeed been providing for us daily. Granted, it was in small increments just like a raven would carry to Elijah. The pieces of bread or meat were not likely to have been very large, but they would have been enough. As this realization struck me, and as I looked at our week, I was deeply encouraged because sure enough, every day, God had been providing just enough. On a Sunday it had come in the form of an offering made by the children in their Sunday School of one of our supporting churches. The kids collected $34 in change and one-dollar bills for us as their missionaries of the month. God had made it clear that we should visit that particular church on that particular Sunday. The second person to walk up to us said, “I have some money for you!” and then ran off to get it from the children’s ministry office. Our relief was likely visible as we had less than $2 left at that point and didn’t know where our lunch was going to come from, let alone how we were going to get groceries for the rest of the week. Then on Monday we eagerly went out to collect our mail hoping (like so often) that God had provided a check just in time. Our hearts fell when we saw only three envelopes from AT&T. Just more bills. Erika asked me if we had gotten anything. I said to her sarcastically, “Not unless AT&T sent us a check!” Low and behold, I was shocked to open one of the envelopes and see that AT&T indeed HAD sent us a small refund check from an over payment I had made when we left Miami. Then, as I drove my car on empty to a have an early meeting with a friend at a coffee shop, I was praying that God would help me to just make it to the coffee shop and back home without the car stalling due to lack of fuel. I prayed, “Jesus, please just let me make it back home.” In the meeting with my friend, he handed me his credit card and told me to fill up my car! All of this happened in just three days. There was always just enough to get us to the next day or to pay for the next essential item. Each day was another opportunity to be thankful, another day to practice gratitude, another day to look for the ravens to come.
