Manna Living Myth Busters

Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6:11


Two things I ask of you, LORD; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. Proverbs 30:7-9

I’ve got a whole new fear of the Lord going on right now. For quite some time, I’ve had a healthy fear of Him as the one who brought me into this world and the one who can take me out. But now, He’s scaring me in new ways. God is doing something with me, to me, in me, and there’s no dismissing it as coincidental or casually observing it as “interesting” any more. No, now it is getting downright scary. In fact, I’m starting to pray that prayer, “No, Lord, please, I don’t wanna!” At the same time, it’s kind of exciting, because I know my Father isn’t going to lead me down a path that He doesn’t make straight.

In this present convergence, I am living in Brazil, where all things economic are more salient to me, and I am reading the books Answers to Prayer by George Mueller, and Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Meanwhile, “coincidentally” an impulsive post I made on Facebook resulted in my getting through email the e-book Economic Conspiracy: Relationality, and learning about the nascent organization RelationalTithe.com. Then last night, again, just “randomly” clicking around on Facebook led me to a Francis Chan YouTube video, a two-minute contemplation on Proverbs 30:7-9. The video was titled “I Dare You to Pray This,” and I went to bed wondering if Chan himself is daring to pray for no more than his daily bread, like the author of that proverb.

This morning, I woke up to this in my reading of Mueller’s book: “Our position now regarding the Orphan work is, praying day by day, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ For a considerable time we have had day by day to look to the Lord for the supply of our daily wants; but God has helped us thus far.”

Lastly, I checked emails and saw that Dave Doc Rogers responded to a thread of mine on Facebook saying, “I understand 'manna' living - just enough, fresh everyday; but I ask that God - our Father - give me all He can so I can do my part to fund or go to all of the world and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to every creature. Amen." I had to click through to see what thread that belonged to, because I couldn’t remember anything I had recently posted about daily bread or manna living. When I got there, I was shocked to see the link to that Chan video on my status! Somehow without realizing it, I had clicked on “share” and added that video to my wall. (Can someone please coin a phrase that means essentially “Freudian slip,” but with holy connotations!)

I was glad Dave Doc Rogers made that remark, because it has led to new understanding about “manna living” or "daily bread living." Asking only for one’s daily provisions by no means requires a person to live in poverty or on meager means. Nor does it limit us to what we can do for the glory of God. That is a myth that has grown up around “manna living” like a thistle bush to make it seem unsavory and impractical, particularly in modern financial times. It does mean that we solely depend on God to provide for all our needs as well as for the desires of our heart. These provisions can be meager or they can be mammoth, depending on His calling on our lives. There is no real relationship between the magnitude of our task and our access to tomorrow’s, next week’s or next year’s manna. Faith in such relationships, for example, believing that the 500K in my retirement fund will keep me from being a burden to my children in the future, is nothing more than misplaced hope.

Let me provide two true examples of how manna living should be confused with meager living. One comes from the life of Michael Cassidy, founder of African Enterprises, who shared it in his book African Harvest. Michael was a student at Fuller Theology School when God gave him a vision to return to his native Africa for the summer and conduct a pan-African evangelistic campaign. Michael was obedient to this leading, and booked tickets for the pan-African tour for himself and a partner in ministry. Just one problem, he had no money to pay for the tickets. That was back in the day when people used travel agents and you didn’t have to pay for tickets within 24 hours of making a reservation. As the semester was coming to a close, prospects for paying for the summer trip were nil, and the travel agent continued to pester Michael about when he was going to pay for those flights he had booked. Until the day before departure, Michael had no idea how God would provide, but he prepared for departure in faith. Then on that last day before the trip, the president of Fuller called him into his office and gave him enough money to pay for the trip! The president was unaware of Michael’s plans and said he was simply being obedient to God’s prompting. Amazing. And totally true. Not urban religion legend, but totally true.

The second example comes from the life and work of George Mueller, a Brit who started orphanages with the primary purpose of showing God’s people that He can be trusted to provide for our needs when we do His work. Manna-living myth-buster that he is, Mueller did big things. In fact, at the time he wrote, “For a considerable time we have had day by day to look to the Lord for the supply of our daily wants,” Mueller had been at this orphanage thing for about 50 years and had 2,100 people under his care.

There are many other examples, both Biblical and contemporary, of this living-by-faith-for-daily-bread—I even have some in my family. It’s not a question of verity. If we fail to believe that our God will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory through Christ Jesus on the single merit that it is the infallible word of God, all we need to do is look around to people who have lived and are living this way to see and experience the truth of that promise.

So what are we all waiting for??? Yea, I know. Me too. I’m not there in my faith yet. This is the faith-building work God is doing in me just now (and scaring the heck out of me with). The important thing at this stage is that I don’t resist the teaching. The important thing is that I don’t believe the lies that the evil one whispers when he says, “That’s not the way God operates anymore. Times have changed.” Yes, they have, but God calls us to live in ancient ways.

“This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” Jer. 6:16.

The Mennonite and the Diva

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?


And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:25, 26, 28-33.


I saw something in WalMart the other day that caused me to evaluate my value system. I saw a Mennonite family that had adopted a Chinese baby girl.

It is rather ironical that Mennonites dress plainly so as not to call attention to self (among other things), and yet their style of dress is quite attention-grabbing. The purpose is defeated whenever they leave their own circles. And so I notice them, but not just notice, I ogle them. I cannot explain my fascination with Mennonites - I just love to look at them (though try not to be caught doing so). But on this day in WalMart, I was staring at something more than their bonnets. I was so stunned by the site of a little Chinese girl dressed in calico that I just walked right up to the older sister who was holding her and asked the obvious, "Did your family adopt her?" (She could have been a foster child, I guess.)

Yes, they had.

The baby, who had a beautiful name I can't recall, had been in the U.S. about three months. She looked to be about 18 months old. I said a few words to her and then put my foot in my mouth again, saying, "Oh, I guess she hasn't been in the country long enough to learn English." Then I recalled that many Mennonites speak German in the home. We had a nice little conversation between two families who have adopted. They also inquired of my son; we exchanged well wishes and went on through the checkout.

On the ride home, I told my daughter, "I feel sorry for that Chinese baby." We chuckled thinking of the day she finally realizes she had been brought to the land of opportunity by Mennonites. As the humorous thoughts were forming in my head, I simultaneously recognized there was a problem with my thinking. So I began to explore mentally why I thought the Chinese baby was less fortunate than if she had been adopted by a mainstream American family. What do we have that Mennonites don't? Certainly not money. The Mennonites in this area are well-off - simple, but not lacking for anything. They use electricity, drive cars and have cell phones, so they don't lack for modern conveniences. They shop at the same grocery store, and I've been to their bake sales - food is certainly in their favor. I finally concluded that what we have that they don't is a huge variety of fashion accoutrements and entertainment choices.

Wow. So I felt sorry for that little Chinese girl because some day she would realize she can't wear paisley, and that she would miss out on things like "Alvin and the Chipmunks," "Hannah Montana" and when she’s grown, "Desperate Housewives." How could a stable family*, and a strong, moral community make up for this little girl being denied pop culture?

Even as I was reflecting on how much I apparently value fashion and entertainment choices, I received in the mail a review copy of Divanomics: How to be Fabulous When You're Broke by Michelle McKinney Hammond. Normally, it would take me up to six months to review a book, but on that same day, I just happened to have a two-hour window with nothing else to do but read. I was intrigued to learn that the well-known diva had come on hard times - books not selling and all that - and now had major financial problems such as needing to dump an overpriced condo, staving off creditors before they repossessed her wig collection, and the like.

Having always lived modestly - and not by choice - I found it hard to muster sympathy for Hammond as she is forced to deconstruct her empire. I would not be so bold as to say that God brought her to this financial trial as a way of setting things straight, but it is quite obvious that in this trial, He is drawing her closer to Him. I was touched by her final reflections about the things that truly matter. The book is packed with decent advice about how to live frugally, but nothing ground-breaking. It might be useful if, like Hammond, one had never in her life given a thought to being frugal and now suddenly needed to become just that. However, for those of us who have been living it all our lives, this book reads like Dick and Jane. I did learn a new trick about house-sitting a McMansion in the chapter "How to Live in a House That's beyond Your Means."

Let's just take that trick, for example, and dissect it. The advice is that there are agencies (she lists a Web site), that represent people who are out of the country, have more than one home, are trying to sell their home, or for some other reason, have a huge, hunking house that is sitting vacant, and would be agreeable to someone living it in for free, in exchange for them maintaining the lawn and deterring thieves and vandals. Sounds pretty good until you consider that the utility bills would probably be more than rent on a two-bedroom apartment, and maintaining the home and grounds of a McMansion is like a part-time job. And for what? So you can impress your friends with 4,000 square feet more space than any single person needs? And forget about watching any scary movies while living in that big house all alone!

The fact that Hammond would guide women into unnecessarily getting into a huge house just for the look and feel of it gets to the heart of a basic assumption that we need to challenge - and it's the same assumption that led me to feel sorry for that adopted Mennonite child: Variety, luxury and brand names are hallmarks of a good life. Divanomics reflects the confusion in Christian thinking on the matter of prosperity and luxury. This is also a topic I am exploring in this blog.

On the one hand, we have the Proverbs 31 woman, dressed in fine linen and purple, bringing her food from afar, with kids clothed in scarlet. On the other hand, we have Jesus telling us that if we want to be perfect, we need to sell our possessions and give to the poor. These are seemingly contradictory, and since there are so many more scriptural references to prosperity (albeit, mostly in the Old Testament) than extreme generosity, a lot of Christians are claiming the prosperity promises with only the occasional nod to gospel generosity. I don't have all the answers, but I do know this: If both of these concepts are recurring in God's one Word, there must be a way to reconcile them.

Oh, what's that? Look what Jesus said at the beginning of this article (and in Matt 6:28-33). Don't worry about clothes, food and the wine list, instead occupy your mind and energies with seeking God's will for your life and He will add all these things to your life. So He wants His children to dress in fine linen, but not to put the appetite or pursuit of it above Him. That was simple enough.

Does Divanomics promote worrying about food, drink and clothes? Well, it is an entire book dedicated to seeking these things out. Beyond that statement, I am ordering my jury to remain silent and leave the final judgment to the reader. The case is somewhat complex, with Hammond mixing in personal testimony, instructions on tithing, and teaching some basic survive-on-the-cheap skills.

I did arrive at a verdict about the Chinese baby, however. I decided that my thinking has been distorted by materialism, and that child is, in fact, blessed.


*In 1982 (last reported stats I could find), when U.S. divorce rates were at a high of near 50%, only 3.5% of active Mennonites had ever divorced or even separated.

Quitting Time

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matthew 6:25-26

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for while they sleep he provides for those he loves. Psalm 127:2

Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint. Proverbs 23:4

For overachievers, hell on earth must be an hourly-wage job. A company policy against overtime keeps them from their obsession do more and better. There probably are some misplaced overachievers here and there in the hourly workforce, but I bet that most often, if an overachiever is in an hourly-wage job, it is stepping stone to something less restrictive. I think of overachievers as typically being in salaried or commissioned positions, or self-employed - a work arrangement from which they can reap some positive reinforcement for their obsession.

Maybe I'm being harsh on overachievers to say they are obsessed. I do believe there are seasons in a person's life that are prime for high productivity and if we have the God fortune to find ourselves in such a time and engaged in an activity for which we are well-suited, we should go for it! Produce, produce produce! However, many an overachiever cannot discern when they are in such a season - they think any season is prime for production. Consequently, there are those who neglect sleep, their health, finding a spouse, or if they found one, neglect the spouse and their children, God, family and even the dog just to get in one more sales call or finish one more chapter or check the balance sheet one more time. Being busy fulfills them. Perhaps they think they are living out Solomon's best case scenario: eat, drink and find satisfaction in work for the few days God has given us (Ecclesiastes 5:18). But look what else Solomon said: "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat," and "Do not wear yourself out to get rich; have the wisdom to show restraint." When we juxtapose these scriptures to a 16-hour work day, overachieving does seem to be a mental ill - an obsession.

Solomon wasn't addressing everyone in these verses, because not everyone has this problem. Many have the opposite problem and to those, he said things like, "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man" (Proverbs 6:10-11). And then there are those who have found the middle way - balance. I venture to say that working an hourly-wage job is conducive to having balance in your life. When the "whistle blows," it is quitting time and off you go to enjoy life outside of work, which usually bears no resemblance to work.

So this entry goes out to all my self-employed, salaried or commissioned homies who aren't calling it a day at the blow of a whistle: Show some restraint. Set yourself a work schedule and, against every fiber of your obsessed being, stop working when quitting time comes. Turn the phone off. Take the wife to dinner. Make every soccer and t-ball game - the season is short. Take a Sabbath (that's once a week, BTW). Take a vacation. Celebrate the holiday, all day.

Easy for me to say, right? Actually, no, it isn't. I struggle almost every night to make dinner while there are still people at the table. I work at night, making it particularly hard for me to call it quits and go to bed on time. I've made great strides in this regard, however. Some years ago, I would work until the wee hours of the morning, now I rarely work past 11 p.m. But my bedtime is 10 p.m. (to get eight hours of sleep), so I have a ways to go.

Jesus (kind of) said life is more important than being able to sport Rolex and Armani and eat at five-star establishments. Yes, but for many an overachiever, Rolex and Armani aren't even on the radar. We're just overachieving for the heck of it - not even really seeing any wealth or prosperity as a result. How much more vain is that! Then there's the overachieving minister. This is the hardest nut to crack because he feels his obsession is sanctioned by God Himself. He's doing the Lord's work, so it is OK to abandon all restraint. After all, the fields are ripe for harvest and the laborers are few. We've got to make hay while the sun still shines! If we go to bed now, a soul could remain lost as a result.

Newsflash: We are expendable; God can call a lost soul to Himself in some other way if we take the day off. And we are no exceptionl; the commandment to rest on the Sabbath was meant even for the men and women in God's service. Just because we're in the family business does not mean the policy manual does not apply to us. Even Jesus observed the Sabbath and holidays, and every once in a while, He just got away from it all to refresh and renew. He had only three years to minister to all of humanity. Surely our deadlines and sales goals pale in comparison.

Contemplate this: Have I allowed work to overstep its rightful role in my life?

The General Welfare

He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
Ephesians 4:28

Here’s one on which most of us honest working folk get a reprieve. Whew! At least I don’t steal … unless we’re going to get nit-picky about office supplies and tax deductions…

Na, you can have the reprieve – I need it too!

After all, if the majority of us weren’t fulfilling this mandate to do something useful with our own hands, how would society hold together?

What I cannot offer a reprieve on, however, is the reiteration –it appears elsewhere in Paul’s writing – of what the purpose of work is: so that we may have something … to share with those in need. That’s what it says. Now notice what is doesn’t say (which my local pastor says is almost as important as what does say). The scripture doesn’t say, “Work so you can have all the things you desire without dishonesty.” It doesn’t say, “Work so you can take care of yourself.” Nor it does say, “Work so you won’t be a burden on anyone else.” In fact, what it does say implies that there are going to be people who are a burden on others – and that’s not only OK, but our purpose in working hard should be to take care of those people in their time of need.

Whoa! Am I advocating for welfare? You better believe I am – the general welfare. In this age of the nation-states, it’s doesn’t seem realistic to pine away for days of yore when institutionalized welfare didn’t exist. It’s a utopian ideal for families and communities to be able to pitch to take care of those in need, but I doubt that’s even possible on such a large population scale and the way we define “community” today. Nonetheless, it seems a shame that a “Christian nation” even needs welfare.

I’ll stop here because I’m no student of history or politics and I know that there were a number of major factors of which I’m ignorant about how our welfare system was conceptualized, and further, how it got to be in the shape it is today. So let me just fast forward to the present. In my opinion, there seem to be two schools on welfare among Christians. In gross generalization: Christian liberals favor institutionalized welfare. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say they favor this out of godly compassion for the poor rather than some hidden agenda to move the country toward socialism. They believe everyone should have a basic standard of living. It’s not right that children should starve, people should freeze to death and the elderly should eat dog food when the Jones’ are throwing leftover ribeye in the garbage. On the other end of the political spectrum, Christian conservatives may not be opposed to a system of institutionalized welfare per se – they also can’t stand the idea of starving children – but they think welfare should be a safety net for only the legitimate hard cases rather than to ensure a basic standard of living and give ongoing aid to people who can but don’t work.

Neither of these positions is antichrist. Christ was extremely liberal in his giving – he fed 4,000 people who should have known better than to leave home without a picnic lunch. And worse, they had all been playing hooky from their jobs – for three days! – to hang out and listen to Him. Why should this type of behavior be condoned? What a bunch of loafers! But Jesus said, “I have compassion for these people … I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

On the other hand, the scripture we’re exploring right now (Ephesians 4: 28) is a solid basis for the conservative Christian stance that we shouldn’t allow abuse of the system by able-bodied people.

Both views are Biblical, and therefore, not at odds. And both hold the basic Biblical tenant that we need to share with people in need. Conveniently, in America today, we fulfill this mandate to share whether we like it or not. The government figures our level of support and takes it out of our paychecks, before we ever even see it. We’ve done something useful with our hands, and as a result, we’ve been able to share with others in need. So, does that take care of things? Is our Christian obligation to share with those in need fulfilled by paying taxes?

You can wrestle with that question in your quiet time with God, but I know this: the amount I am obligated to give from my paycheck is not meeting the needs of everyone in this country and certainly not everyone around the world. I can say this in all certainty because I know people with needs that aren’t being met through welfare. And I bet you know some too. The liberals and conservatives can duke it out about welfare all they want; two things don’t change: I still have to pay as much in taxes as always (if they make cuts to welfare, it will be to fund another program) and there are still people with need in my sphere of influence.

It seems to me that if God has placed someone in need in my path and simultaneously provided me with an income that meets and exceeds my need (even after taxes), it would please God for me to use that excess to share with those in need. And I do want to please God.

Contemplate this: Have I fulfilled God’s will to share with those in need by being in a certain tax bracket or paying a certain percentage to charity?

Have You Enjoyed Your Toilet Seat Today?

I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men: God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.

A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man - even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity.
Ecclesiastes 6:1-6a

I love to grow herbs. It makes me feel rich to have a pot of basil that has enough leaves on it to divvy up into a dozen bunches such as I would buy at the supermarket for $3 each. That makes that bush worth $36! Add rosemary, oregano and dill and I've got more than $100 sitting on my patio. Just as much as I like to grow them, I also like to share them. I had been in the good habit of snipping herbs on Sunday and taking them in plastic baggies in a basket to church, sitting them in the foyer with a sign that says "Free." That was a great pleasure to me and one I looked forward to all spring as my herbs were growing to full foliage. But then something happened that I can't fully explain and all of the sudden summer is over, the herbs are dying and I never shared them even once. I just now sat looking out my window at a second dill plant that seeded itself, noting how it's big enough to start snipping and I felt regret at not having shared my herbs at all this year. It is my greatest joy in growing herbs and I didn't get it experience it this year because I've been too… busy, I guess.

I have every expectation that next year will be different, more like years past, but what if it weren't? What if year after year, and not just with the herbs but with all my prized possessions, I had good intentions of enjoying them that life crowded out. It's like the person who lives on the ocean and never sets foot in the sand. What is the use of this? Indeed, this is the condition of futility that Solomon observes above, and it is more powerful than I might have imagined from my small experience with unshared herbs. Solomon says that if a person can't enjoy all the desires of his heart, things he has in his grasp already, but lacks wherewithal to enjoy them, it is such a desperate condition that that person would actually be better off never having been born at all. Wow. I contemplate lives that I think may have been better off not happening - like children in sex trade or slavery – but I don't think I've ever lumped a filthy rich person who has everything they could ever want in that category. I'll have to trust Solomon on this one though because he should know. The Bible says he was the richest man who ever lived (stand back Bill Gates!), and the wisest, and whereas I don't think he was talking about himself in this passage, if any human could know such a thing, he could.

What I find most interesting in this passage is that God is credited with both giving the man all the desires of his heart and keeping him from enjoying them. Why would God do such a thing? Justice? Couldn't that be achieved by just not letting him have all the desires of his heart, but rather just some, a fair amount? God has made everything for His own purpose, some to glorify Him, the wicked for a day of disaster and some miserable yet filthy rich dude as an example to the rest of us of why we shouldn't envy the person who has everything money can buy. Seems like there are worse things in life than to be filthy rich and unable to enjoy it, but no! There aren't! Solomon says live two, thousand-years lives this way if you could and you're still better off never having been born. Let that sink in. This is the worst kind of miserable. Can money really do this to a person?

I trust you are not this miserable, praise God, but here's a tough question: Are you enjoying the desires of your heart that God has given you? Take a moment to think about what some of those things are: a boat, a nice car, a yard with grass, a special ring, a plasma TV, the perfect coffee mug, a summer vacation? Are you enjoying these things, really enjoying them? Or are you taking them for granted? Now let's go a little more basic and think about things you might be taking for granted because you wouldn't even recognize them as being desires of your heart until you didn’t have them: a hot shower daily, a toilet to sit on (versus, say, a hole to squat over), vision (even if it has to be corrected), hearing (ditto), climate-controlled housing... When was the last time you enjoyed a hot shower? You may have had one this morning, but did you enjoy it? The miserable rich man surely had a hot shower daily too - it's not the having of the thing that matters, it's the enjoyment of it. When did you last enjoy your vision and hearing? When did they last give you real joy? When did you last consciously appreciate them?

You think I've made my point, but I haven't. The point is that life for a follower of Christ is supposed to be abundant and that means enjoyment. We can experience that abundance any day of the week at any moment by turning our attention to the desires of our heart that God has given us. Any given day, I can walk out on my patio and snip some herbs to take to a neighbor - my greatest herbal joy. So, what's stopping me?

Contemplate this: What is keeping me from fully enjoying the good things in my life right now?