Dependently Wealthy

Synopsis: God provided manna for the Israelites to eat, but only a day at a time. They could only collect enough manna for that day, but they could not store it for tomorrow. Why did God do it that way? So that every twenty-four hours they would have to trust God to meet their need. That is where the verse came from, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deut 8:33) You see, God has made it so that we must come back to him daily because he is the source of all we need. That is why Jesus taught us to ask God for daily bread: to keep us ever mindful that our Father, himself, is the source of our life.

Moments With God // Proverbs 30:8-9

Who doesn’t want to be independently wealthy? Anything that provides independence, especially here in America, is highly prized. That’s why our most treasured national document is the Declaration of Independence.

Yet there is something greater than our independence, and that is our utter dependence on God. When we live in the daily awareness of our absolute need for God, we are dependently wealthy—and there is nothing better. That is what this proverb is saying—a vital Christian life principle that was repackaged by Jesus most profoundly when he taught us in the Lord’s Prayer to pray,

Give us today our daily bread. (Matt 6:11)

Did you notice two times in just six words Jesus refers to “daily?” Apparently, that was significant to Jesus. Why daily?

It is the only time in the New Testament that this particular Greek word was used. In fact, this word baffled scholars for years because they couldn’t find a record of it in ancient Greek literature—sacred or secular. Then, between 1947-56 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, and the word “daily” was found in both business and religious documents. It referred to a daily shopping list of perishable items good only for that day.

That brings up an important point to what Jesus is saying: Even though God is our provider, his promise to provide is provisional. That means prayer is not a blank check. Jesus deliberately chose the word “daily” not because God likes to hear us beg but to teach us the importance of expressing our day-by-day dependence on God.

Now that is hard to relate to since for most of us, we have not just today’s food, we have tomorrow’s food and next week’s food in our freezer. And when we run out, we have Costco, which is not like a grocery store; it is the size of an international airport. Employees do not use box-cutters; they drive forklifts. Your shopping cart is the size of a Volkswagen. You do not get individual items; you pick up pallets of food. When you check out, it is akin to making a car payment. Then you haul it home and you must figure out where to put all that stuff.

In twenty-first-century America, daily bread is not much of a felt need. Even still, that daily bread comes from God and it can be taken away in a heartbeat, so we should never take God’s provision for granted. But even if daily bread is not our need, we probably have other more pressing needs: a difficult marriage, sour finances, an under-paying job, an impure addiction, or a life-and-death battle with cancer. And the pressing issue is if we will trust God and lean into him to meet our needs today. The need may not be for food, but our need for God’s provision of daily bread is still just as great.

Remember in the Old Testament when God provided manna for the Israelites to eat, but only a day at a time. They could only collect enough manna for that day, but they could not store it for tomorrow. Why did God do it that way? So that every twenty-four hours they would have to trust God to meet their need. That is where the verse came from, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” (Deut 8:33)

What does that mean? God has made it so that we must come back to him daily because he is the source of all we need. That is why both this proverb and Jesus taught us to ask God for daily bread: to keep us ever mindful that our Father, himself, is the source of our life.

What is your manna? What drives you every twenty-four hours to say, “God, you are my source, and I am going to trust you for this. Today, I declare my dependence on you.” When you learn to lean into that truth every day, you have become dependently wealthy—and there is no better way to live!