Miracle at the Teeter

About a week ago I went to the woods to pray. During my time in Lake Norman State Park, I sat in the pine forest and read from Matthew's account of Jesus' life. In the very beginning of Jesus' ministry he was "led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry." (Matthew 4:1-2, ESV) As I read this I remembered being in Ranger school and eating only 1 meal a day. I was so hungry that I would do just about anything to get food. I remember some of the guys I was with going "dumpster diving" for thrown out biscuits! So, 40 days without food seems almost impossible. Matthew goes on to say that "the tempter [Satan] came and said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." (Matthew 4:3, ESV) So, here is Jesus ravenously hungry, way past dumpster diving stage and Satan comes along and says, hey if you really are God feed yourself. Get rid of the crazy hunger pains and make these stones into hot loaves of bread. At this point I was thinking, what would be so wrong about that? I mean if Jesus is hungry wouldn't God want him to eat? And if he is God certainly he could do it. But Jesus' answer is really strange. He says, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4, ESV) His answer is actually a quote from the book of Deuteronomy, which is the story of how God brought this whole group of people, the Israelites out of Egypt where they were slaves and took care of them for 40 years in the middle of the desert. The story in Deuteronomy says that God allowed the people to be hungry and that he provided literally food from heaven that appeared on the ground every morning, so that they would know that "man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." (Deuteronomy 8:3, ESV) So, this story gets even more interesting. God provided this manna or food which fed the people and took away their physical hunger. But the really important thing is that it was God who provided for the Israelites and they knew it. No God, no food. As I read this I realized what Jesus was really saying by refusing to turn the stone into bread. He was saying, 'Yes, I am hungry' but feeding myself will only fill me up for a while. Tomorrow I'll be hungry again. My real needs, the deepest ones of my heart can only be met by God himself, not by my own power or effort.

So I came out of this time in the woods and went home. The next morning I woke up with a big burden on my heart. I thought, "What have I done?" I have quit my job, I'm selling my house and on August 1st I'm not sure how I'll pay my bills. And I have done all of this to pursue what I thought God was asking me to do. And in that moment I felt overwhelmed almost crushed. I thought how could I be so stupid to believe that this would work. So I prayed and told God everything in my heart. I told Him that I wasn't sure this was going to work out. And then I asked Him to show up. To reassure me that he would do something, that he would provide.

A few minutes after praying this I went to Harris Teeter to buy some groceries. After getting the things that I needed I went to the self checkout aisle. After paying, the machine produced my receipt. Written on the receipt were the words, "Congratulations" followed by an explanation that my groceries were paid for. Not knowing what this was all about I went to the Customer Service desk with my receipt. After handing it to the manager, she replied, "When did you get this?" I said, "Just now." She said, "Well congratulations you are the 400th customer and your groceries are on us. But the really strange thing is that it's only 7 am and this usually doesn't happen until much later in the day."

As I signed for my free $29.77 worth of groceries (I know I should have bought more), I began to tear up. I remembered what I read the day before. "Man cannot live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God." In response to my doubt, to my burden, God provided my physical bread. And more importantly he reminded me that He is in charge, that He is faithful, and that when I refuse to do things my way, on my own, I open up the possibility that God might do something wonderful and beautiful.

To Christ be the Glory.