Depending on God: 7 Days to Recognizing Your Deep Need for HimSample

We Depend Entirely Upon God for Our Provision

One of my sons enjoys watching survivalist shows, particularly those about people living off the grid in the Alaskan wilderness. It’s not uncommon to hear them talk about being self-sufficient, depending only on themselves for their livelihood. But even if we hunt, gather, and grow everything we eat, sew our clothes, and build our own shelters, self-sufficiency is always an illusion. We hunt and gather what already exists. We grow crops from seeds that are already there. We sew and build with preexisting materials. We do it all with bodies that God formed and sustains with life. We depend on him for all we need all the time.

Human beings love food. We love to talk about it, prepare it, buy it, and post pictures of it online. Most of all, we love to eat it! So it should not surprise us that the first subject God speaks to after creating humans is food. The need for food isn’t discussed; it’s just assumed. To live, we need to eat. To eat, we need food. To have food, we need God.

We need food. We derive strength from food. Without food, our power fades, and ultimately, we die. The need for food isn’t a product of the Fall; it’s a product of design. God didn’t have to make us this way, but he did. In doing so, he reminds us daily that we’re not self-sustaining. The living God does not eat. So, when we eat, we remember that we’re not God. We repeatedly eat throughout life to remember that we always have needs that God alone can provide. Food helps us recognize that life comes from and is sustained by God.

When I was a child, our school cafeteria offered only one meal option each day. If you didn’t like it, you didn’t eat (except you had to because the teachers made you). But God isn’t like the grumpy lunch lady slapping mystery meat onto your tray with a “you’re gonna eat it, and you’re gonna like it” look in her eye. “The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground, every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. Did you catch the description of the trees in God’s orchard—“every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food.” God could have whipped up some bland, gelatinous all-in-one food source, something straight out of a dystopian sci-fi flick. But he didn’t. He gave us variety, beauty, and nutrition! God’s provision is like the charcuterie boards so popular these days—an assortment of meats and cheeses, bread and crackers, fruits and nuts, vegetables and chocolates offered in abundance and displayed with beauty.

Why is God’s provision so lavish? Because food exists to give us something more than physical strength. Why does God cause grass and crops to grow? Why does he produce food from the earth? So that wine can make our hearts happy. So that oil can make our skin shine. So that bread can sustain not merely our bodies but our hearts.

God’s provision isn’t utilitarian. It’s designed to function and to please, to go beyond our needs so that we remember “life is more than food and the body more than clothing”. God provides in pleasing ways so that we won’t forget he’s the source of all our happiness.