Proposal

Writing Sample

Hungry

TABLE TALK: "Even though you have to shell out a few bucks for the beef, nothing beats Hamburger Helper Cheesy Enchilada w/Rice. Cook it up and put it in a tortilla with some Colby-jack cheese. It reheats great and looks and tastes like "grown-up" food as soon as you throw away the box! Don't eat the sour cream or cheese sauce mixes--sauce should not start life as a powder--maybe you can use it as putty to fill in all those nail-holes that you weren't supposed to put in your dorm walls at the end of the semester. Don't eat Ramen unless absolutely necessary (the powdered sauce theory applies for those flavor packets too...). Your body deserves something at least mildly healthy and your taste buds deserve something more enjoyable." - Dave

Ah, college.

I arrived at the University of Georgia as a Pennsylvania Yankee in the Court of SEC Football. I was never really a big college football fan. The first few games of my freshman year I did my laundry because no one was around. While my permanent press rinsed, I could hear cheers from Sanford Stadium echoing across the abandoned campus. Finally, I shelled out the five dollars for a game and became a Bulldog fan ever since. Our school won the National Football Championship my first year there and for the next three we were ranked in the Top 10.

Life was good.

During those four years in college, I had my first real girlfriend, which meant I was not dating her just because we were going to a high school dance or prom together and felt obligated to hang out a few weeks before and a week after the big event. Girls only dated me in high school because they had to. They wanted to go to the dance so they could have pictures of them wearing ugly light pink or creamy orange dresses to show their grandkids. So when I asked them to go, they immediately thought of their grandkids asking them, "Grandma, how come you didn't go to any dances in high school?" With all the other date prospects snatched up by the cheerleading squad, girls reluctantly said yes to my offer. Those relationships never lasted one week after said dance.

But in college, I was a part of a full-fledged attraction. All the guys thought she was babe and looked at me and thought, "What does she see in him?" Obviously, they were just jealous and refused to acknowledge how hot I was.

Truth be told, I fell into the guy classification of skinny dork, so it must have been my personality that attracted her to me. Certainly not money or car. I had neither. I constantly doubted whether this relationship would last or even if it were real. I woke up every morning and said, "Is she really dating me?" then waited all day for the big reveal as people jumped out from behind sofas and out of closets yelling, "Surprise! She's doesn't really like you!"

That never happened. So, I had a beautiful girl at my side while I watched the Bulldogs beat the Florida Gators every game (this was the early 80s folks). Every touchdown she would give me a big kiss so I cheered for Georgia to score more so I could score more.

Life was good.

My grades were excellent and I even took Honors classes. Honors classes mean you talk a bunch in class and expound your ideas instead of taking actual tests. That worked fine for me. Quizzes are tools of the devil. I love to tell people my ideas even though I had no idea how I got them. The Professors did the same thing so they thought I was a genius.

My emphasis was on radio-television-film with a minor in drama and my work was well received. My whole life I knew I wanted to work in the movie and television business. Now I attended a college with a great media department, editing equipment and 16 mm cameras. A big step up from my Super 8 mm camera.

Life was good.

I even had a job that I liked. I worked at the school movie theater, selling tickets to the daily rotation of eclectic and mainstream films. I love movies and in the days before VCR and DVD, it was the only way to see some of these films. Because I worked there, I saw them all free. Everything from Jaws to Eraserhead.
REM was growing in popularity and lead singer Michael Stipe came by every Monday for foreign film night with his earthy, bohemian girlfriend. I could tell he was going to be huge so I said hi every chance I could, hoping he would remember me some day and write a song called "Movie Ticket Man."

Okay that didn't happen, but life was still good.

I partied as much as I wanted. Tuesdays night were Drink and Drown. Thursday nights were Dollar Pitcher Night. Friday nights…the weekend begins. Saturday nights were frat parties. It seemed you always had money for these events which cost no more than five or ten bucks to get totally sloshed. No more reporting in to mom and dad to tell them where you are or why you're sleeping over your friend's house. Beer and grain alcohol flowed like the Jordan River, baptizing the young drinking disciples into obliviousness.

Life…good.

I lived in a great dorm, co-ed even, and had a wonderful array of co-ed friends, people you lived with, laughed with, hung out with, slept with and saw every day.

The dining hall conveniently sat right downstairs and provided me with three full meals a day. I packed on the pounds since they offered an all-you-can-eat buffet and I ate all I could. They introduced me to Southern fare, such as grits, black eyed peas, fried okra and all kinds of ways to fry chicken. Every morning, all the pancakes, waffles and French toast you could want. Every afternoon, sandwiches, salads and dessert. Every evening, five entrees, four side dishes, salads and dessert.

Mmmm, good…

Then, that all changed…I graduated and moved to Los Angeles.

Los Angeles didn't care what school I went to or how well the football team did in the SEC standings.
I was alone because I broke up with my girlfriend. I wanted to go to LA and become successful and I didn't see her as part of the plan.

Nobody looked at my grades or my little film projects, which looked so amateurish compared the big budget blockbusters being released.

My experience paid off in the job market. I used my degree in Mass Communications with a minor in Drama to land a job in North Hollywood working at…a movie theater, tearing tickets with my little black uniform and clip-on bow tie. The release of VHS and BETA tapes allowed me the opportunity to work a second job in a video rental store, one of the first ever started. We hand wrote every order. Two hundred people packed the store on weekends, all anxious to try out their new VCRs while twenty employees behind the counter scrambled to fill their orders. Chaos.

My one room apartment on Kittridge in Van Nuys overlooked a nursing home and a popular corner for prostitutes and drug dealers. Quite a contrast. I could hear the dying patients in the nursing home crying out in pain, while hookers whistled to potential clients for business. One group wanted to get out of bed. The other wanted to get into bed.

I had a couple really good friends, who are still my friends today, but hardly the full roster of buds and pals I had before I left college.

Partying got expensive, so that was limited.

And the food… Gone were the buffets of endless salad bar, dessert bar, drink dispenser, turkey tetrazinni, meatloaf, fish sticks, baked ziti, all prepared by my fifteen mothers behind the counter whose sole purpose in life was to keep my stomach full. Now I had to cook for myself on a food budget of $20 a week.

Life suddenly was not so good…

This is when you discover how to eat cheaply, watching for sales and cutting out coupons. Buy 1 Get 1 Free. Dollar off. And my favorite-double coupons. I would spend hours in Vons and Lucky supermarkets trying to mathematically calculate prices per ounce after doubling the coupon, subtracting it from the base price, then dividing it by the ounces per container.

I learned more math in the grocery store then sixteen years of school.

You must get creative with so little choices. Unfortunately tight budgets do not equal good taste. That's when you realize you must eat Ramen Noodles, Macaroni & Cheese and Tuna Fish Sandwiches just to survive.
Ramen Noodles are a Japanese soup that begin as a bar of granite-hard noodles, soaked in cement, with a little packet of flavoring. By just adding hot water, you get a substantial bowl of stomach filling pasta. Today Ramen Noodles sell four to five for a dollar. That's four to five lunches!

Macaroni & Cheese sounds like Ramen Noodles, only the noodles are smaller and the little packet is called cheese flavoring. Just add hot boiling water and this is dinner. You can get two boxes of Mac & Cheese for a dollar, sometimes in the shapes of dinosaurs or Sponge Bob. If you prefer the bland store brand, you can escape with four boxes for a dollar.

Tuna fish does not rank high on many people's dietary palate, but when you get two cans of meat/protein for a dollar, it's time to suck it up. One can only handle so much bargain pasta. This combined with a dollar loaf of white bread makes a perfect lunch or dinner.

So many other foods could have fit into this title. I remember opening cans of Spam, slicing them delicately like a fine London Broil, cooking them in my toaster oven with a slice of cheese on top. (We had a rule back then: anything is good with cheese on it.) Today I look at the can and wonder…what was I thinking? And what was that slimy goo inside every can?

A big can of stew (store brand, because Dinty Moore was too hoity-toity for our budget) filled us with its huge chunks of potatoes, carrots and mysterious meat. This was more a Sunday supper.

TV dinners had it all. Meat, starch, veggie and dessert. Can you think of a more well balanced meal with no dishes to clean up? Today you can get ten dinners for ten dollars!

And if things were going really well, Hamburger Helper. A skillet of that was heaven and made us think we were really cooking! Come on…we had to follow more than two directions on the box, besides Open Box and Serve.

Peanut butter and jelly, instant mashed potatoes, cereal, fast food, frozen pizzas, Jello, I could go on…

The days of Ramen Noodles, Mac & Cheese and Tuna Fish sandwiches remind me of a time when I had very little. Even today, years removed from those days of scrapping by and eating low-cost food to stay alive, I see those food items in the store and I remember the struggle, the insecurity and the doubt that I faced. It was a period of transition into the big leagues of life, filled with accountability and responsibility while having very little ability to handle any of it.

High school and college do not prepare you for the reality of life on your own. Your college may send you angry letters telling you your dorm fees are due. But now, apartment managers hire angry goons to break your legs. (I'm exaggerating…sort of…) Mom doesn't call you down for dinner anymore. Now you call Mom and beg to come home for dinner because you haven't eaten a decent meal in a month.

It is during those times when we have so little that we feel so alone. Depression and anxiety set in. Does anybody care? Is it going to be this way for the rest of my life? Am I always going to be without?

It is during those times when we have to be reminded of what God wants to feed us. And it's found in two items Jesus referred to and used over and over in His ministry: loaves and fish.

God's Resources

JN 6:5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
JN 6:7 Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"
JN 6:8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, 9 "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"

TABLE TALK: "The poorest I have ever been was cutting back on everything. We were on food stamps and assistance and we didn't have any lights in our house because our electric got cut off. We ate TV dinners a lot I remember and rice and beans because it was cheapest." Gina

TABLE TALK: "I can think of 2 times when we were financially poor. The first time we lived in Houston Texas. My husband was out of work and I was a stay at home Mom. We paid our bills and used the money that was left for food because we believed that God's word said He would provide the food. Usually we didn't have much money left for food so I had to be very creative when planning the meals. One day we were talking about what foods we missed the most. Mine was cream for my coffee. One of my sons missed peanut butter. I believe God's promises to take care of our needs because He did. He provided food for us from a very unlikely source. A friend of mine had a foster child. The child's mother was a cancer patient who was on welfare. There was a church that was giving so much food to this woman that she couldn't eat it all herself. She asked my friend if she knew anyone who could use the food. She sent us 3 or 4 bags of food. Guess what was in one of the bags. Peanut butter and coffee creamer." Kay

I remember the absolute poorest time in my life. During my early days in Los Angeles, I worked every chance I got, taking odd jobs that included everything from a production assistant on movies and music videos to installing Jacuzzis in people's back yards. I saved money, clipped coupons and kept my overhead to a minimum. Besides rent and auto insurance (I paid cash for a broken down Oldsmobile Starfire), the only other monthly bill I had was a school loan I promised my parents I would pay back. That monthly payment came to $58.20.

As much as I cut back and scrapped by, I found myself closing in on zero dollars in my checking account and no money in savings. Work slowed down considerably with nothing on the horizon.

I recently became a Christian and began studying the promises of God. I remember hearing, though I could never quote you the verse at the time, that God would take care of me when I was down. That's all I knew. The pastor emphasized that over and over and we even turned to it in the Bible. It was there. I knew it.
The school loan payment deadline approached and when I opened my check book, guess how much I had in my balance…$58.20. A coincidence…I think not.

I was at a crossroads. Did I really believe this promise from God? I mean really? This was the moment of truth.
After a short prayer and deep breath, I pulled out my pen and wrote the check, bringing my balance to zero. I officially had no money. I risked it all by paying a school loan payment. Fifty eight dollars buys a lot of Ramen noodles. Of all the bills, I could certainly miss one without serious damage to my credit rating. The school loan people would understand. Do they really expect you to pay that back?

But God said he would take care of me and I wanted to see if it was true. I didn't know how, but I believed He had the resources.

Now you would expect as a reward for my leap of faith a big refund check showing up in the mail or a disoriented millionaire wandering around on the highway and I give him a lift to his house and he hands me with a big, fat wad of money. No such thing. But God did give me an idea.

I began a campaign called "Spare Change for Troy." I took an empty can of soup and wrote the name of the campaign on the side and went door-to-door with my plea. I approached everyone I knew and asked them to give me their change. After a few days I made…fifty eight dollars. No joke. At least I had food for the next couple weeks. Time to stock up on Macaroni and Cheese.

Because of my desperate plea, I managed to find a couple jobs in the process. Neighbors hired me for day jobs at their place of employment. Slowly, but surely, the funds reappeared and bankruptcy was never declared.

I have needed this faith to get by all throughout my life. I lost a job months before my wedding, curtailing our honeymoon plans to go to Jamaica. My wife got pregnant three months into our marriage, having our firstborn one week before our first anniversary. A year after his birth, we decided Barbie needed to leave her job at ABC Television (she made more than me) to stay home and be a fulltime mother, drastically cutting our income well over half. Three other couples and ourselves formed a group called "The Poor Club," all newlyweds with no money, who gathered and found the cheapest things to do. The admission into the club was an Entertainment Guide, packed with two-for-one and half-off deals.

But we never went hungry and we never went homeless. The resources came when we needed and God has always kept His promise to us.

Faced with the crises to feed 15,000 people, the apostles responded in a natural way. "Where are we going to get food for all these people? We don't have enough money between us to feed them!" They calculated the approximate cost to feed all these people-eight months wages. So take your yearly salary, multiply it by .80 and you get an idea of what it would cost to feed all those people.

Pretty scary. But don't attack the apostles because of their lack of faith. We panic when we have 15 guests coming over for dinner. Imagine opening the door and finding 15,000 hungry mouths.

All together now… "What's for dinner!"

It's times like this that we acknowledge our limited resources.

It's times like this that we must acknowledge God's unlimited resources.

God's resources during the mass feeding included three very limited things: fish, bread and a boy. Doesn't seem like much, but in God's eyes it was all He needed.

Ground beef is so versatile. You can make:
Hamburgers
Meatloaf
Meat balls
Casseroles (see Hamburger Helper)
Taco meat
Pizza topping

You can broil it, bake it, fry it, grill it. Every freezer requires a pound or two of it, for emergencies. Chicken comes in a close second in terms of versatility.

But if you ventured into the freezers of America today, most times you would not find fish. Maybe a forgotten box of Mrs. Paul's Fish Sticks or a hermetically sealed slab of salmon given to you by someone on vacation in Seattle. Most pantries contain a can or two of tuna.

Fishing today is a sport. $200 rod, miles of line, a fly that took you two hours to tie just right and a $30 license. Clad in hip boots and a silly hat that you would never wear in public, you set out to conquer…the 5-pound bass. Once you snag the elusive prey, you do what any brave outdoorsman does…

You throw it back.

Eat the fish you catch? Why? The store provides you with all the fish you need to eat, but few people I know ever eat fish. My purebred Norwegian father-in-law, born in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes (that number's been proven inaccurate) cannot stand fish. Even shrimp or scallops. He hates the smell. His favorite line: "Why should I eat something that everyone works so hard to cover up its smell?" He is right. A good dish of fish smells nothing like itself. Instead it is smothered in butter, garlic and oils.

America is not a fishy culture. We do not value fish like Israel did during Jesus' time. Back then fish was the ground beef of their diets. You dried it, salted it, cooked it on the fire. The Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River, for those living in Israel, acted as their supermarkets. The Sea of Galilee, today, contains nearly 24 varieties of fish.

Fishing back in Israel was a means of survival. Huge dragnets thrown over the side of the boat brought in, hopefully, dozens of fish at a time. Fish travel in schools and their numbers could bring a successful haul in less than an hour.

For a Jew, fish fit their kosher diet. When God spoke to the Israelites in the Old Testament and outlined the foods they could eat, fish figured prominently on the list.

Interstate 4, the main thoroughfare in Orlando, is a nightmare. Mornings and afternoons prove to be testing grounds for patience. Orlando tries its best to make it bearable. Cameras send visuals to a control center that monitors traffic flow. When snags occur, digital signs report what's ahead with such messages as:

"You're doomed! Go back!"
"Hope you're not in a rush! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"
"You can't get there from here!"

There is one highlight of the I-4 traffic jam…near Kaley Avenue.

The Merita Bread factory.

It's quite a sight to watch fuming, disgruntled drivers, banging their steering wheels and shouting muted curses, suddenly roll down their windows and stick their noses out like dogs, taking deep, tasty whiffs of fresh baked bread, blowing across the interstate.

No matter what temperature outside or what speed you're going, you have to roll down your window at the Merita Bread factory. It makes you want to work there. I imagine all the workers just standing around with goofy smiles and half closed eyes, their noses pointed into the air, mesmerized by the pleasant smells during their eight hour work day.

Or imagine the Director of Yeast Distribution returning home and his whole family sniffing him as he walks through the house.

Bread has that effect on us.

We honeymooned in San Francisco after our Jamaica plans were scrapped and took the trolley right to Fisherman's Wharf every day. In March the temperature was cold enough that a warm cup of fresh clam chowder tasted just right. But how could we forget a side of sourdough bread that we dunked in the soup, mopping up the leftovers as a chowder chaser.

Don't you love to smell fresh bread or bread products as doughnuts, bagels, garlic bread, soft/hard pretzels?
In the words of Homer Simpson… "Uuuuuuuuhhhh. Bread."

In Jesus' day, the best flour for bread was wheat. The rich dined on this. The bread offered to God by the priests was made with wheat. Only the finest, whole grain goodness.

Another type of flour is barley, but barley ripens before wheat and was consumed by the poorer peasants.
A storehouse of any grain constituted wealth, since it meant they had food for years.

Today we drive to the store, push our four-wheeled deluxe shopping cart rigged with a GPS (Ground Positioning Satellite) mapping system to find our way around 50-aisled Super Duper Markets. Turning down the bread aisle, which could double as a landing strip, we carefully place the soft loaves of bread into our carts, then complain when the check-out bagger piles ten cans of soup on top of it, crushing three slices.
Bread is still a staple of just about any diet around the world. Watch any movie or TV show: you will always see a loaf of bread in the bag of a character returning from the store. Usually it's a long loaf of Italian bread sticking out the top. Every character with a shopping list or receiving orders to stop at the store is asked to pick up bread.

And while we're talking about bread, can I ask why we throw away the end pieces of our loaves? It's tossed with such disgust, as if it contained mold, or the plague. Hint: put the white side out and peanut butter and jelly on the crust side. You'll never know the difference.

At Passover, God instructed the Israelites to make bread quickly, without leaven. No time to wait around for the rising. "There's no time to cook! Run for your lives!" The bread came out flat, like Pita. Every Passover, the Jews skip the leaven, to remind them of how quickly God moved to rescue them from slavery.

If you were rich back then, you had an oven, but most baked their bread on rocks.

Of all the food items Jesus could have supplied to those sitting before him, why did he choose bread and fish? Why not peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cans of Spam? Or fried chicken and bags of chips?
These food items were the most familiar to the crowd before him. Today, while speaking in a college stadium, Jesus probably would use tacos with chips and salsa or pizza because they are known to those sitting in the stands. But a person from the Middle East would not understand what it took to get a taco and chips to their mouth. Fish and bread they understood.

Understanding the preparation of the food unlocks the first key, God's resources transcend time and space.
Fish and bread both require a number of steps to get them to the mouth of the one eating them and Jesus pulled fully baked loaves and fully cooked fish out of thin air-not out of an oven, or from the frozen food section or from a grocery cart. He didn't transport them out of the pantries of those before him or pull the resources from their pockets. He worked in a way that sped up time and compressed space to provide so much for so many.
Now fish come from water, but Jesus didn't throw a net over the side of a boat to feed them. Jesus caught, dried, cooked and pulled the fish out of thin air, in the blink of a eye, while standing on dry land. Not just a handful, but one or two per person. We know this because the Bible says everyone got something to eat and everyone ate until they were full.

Back in biblical times, bread took a lot of effort to make. The wheat was harvested, then threshed and beaten. The leftover stalks were winnowed with a fork (or rake) and blown away by the wind. The wheat kernels that fell to the ground were then sifted, removing rocks and impurities. What was left was finely ground with a stone, and mixed with water and olive oil. They then added a piece of fermented dough called leaven, which acted as the raising agent. This leaven came from a previous batch and was made with white bran or barley. Mixed with water, it soured over time, then was added to the next freshly made loaf. This is still done today.
Jesus harvested, winnowed, ground, stirred, mixed, then baked the loaves in a matter of seconds.

God isn't worried about the steps required to supply your needs. He isn't flustered by your need, wondering how He's going to provide. I try so hard, during my times of poverty, to give God a detailed plan on how to get me what I need. I let him know what job to get me, when it should start, how much I should make, where I need to go. Then I don't get it and I collapse in frustration. That's it. I'm finished. Ruined.

I was asked to come in for an interview to write for a reality show shooting in town. Funds were running low (again) and I really needed this job. As I entered the offices, I saw another writer there, who I knew well. They scheduled both of us at the same time. The producer took me first, we talked at length, then he told me to wait. The other writer was next, then he joined me outside. The producer talked it over with another producer, then came outside and said, "Both of you are qualified and we couldn't decide. So we flipped a coin and you won."
The other writer. I smiled, shook hands then angrily shook my fist all the way home. God, I needed that job! Needed it!

Actually I didn't, because then the unexpected happened. The unexpected always happens. A phone call from someone I haven't spoken to in years. A mysterious check. An invitation. Other work came in, checks, more work, you name it. I didn't go bankrupt.

The other writer told me of the horrific experience on working on the show. Late nights. 18 hour days. 7 days a week. The location was one hour one way from my house (and I hate to drive in traffic). The show, beautiful co-eds vying for the affection of the best looking guy on campus, was filled with sexy, immoral situations that I would have had a problem creating.

It was a good thing I didn't get the job. God knew what he was doing.

Whatever you need, God will get it to you. Somehow. Someway. He's proven He can do that.

The second key to God's resources is that they are unlimited, but practical.

Open your refrigerator and what do you see? Eggs, milk, ketchup, mustard, bread, some fruit and veggies, right? No pheasant under glass. No caviar. At least not on a regular basis. Just the basics.

What does God promise to provide us?

"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? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? "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. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:25-34

God promises to use his resources to provide us with the same exact things He promises to provide to every creature on Earth. God says, "The birds eat. Lilies and grass are clothed in splendor. Why wouldn't I feed and clothe my people who I love just as much?"

How does He show His love to the birds and flowers? The birds get worms and bugs. The flowers get sunshine and rain. How does He show His love to us? Food and water. Now, He doesn't promise high priced food, purified water from a glacier in Alaska and the latest fashions. The world seeks after this kind of stuff because they think it's what life is all about. He promises us the practical necessities of survival.
Jesus didn't take the few loaves of bread and a couple fish and produce Penne Pasta Salad, Tiramisu, Ratatouille or Cranberry-Pear Cake. He took what they needed and provided them with more of what they needed. No fancy French dinners, just the staples of their diet.

Not that He doesn't surprise us at times with Penne Pasta Salad, Tiramisu, Ratatouille or Cranberry-Pear Cake. It's just not what He promises on a regular basis.

Jesus promises in Matthew 6 that if we seek Him first (through prayer, Bible study, community in our local church), He will supply us with food, drink and clothes.

Not necessarily Swiss Steak, Sweet Potato Enchiladas, Fresh Mozzarella with Basil, or Chocolate Berry Cobbler to eat, or French champagne, Starbucks, Evian water or a Rutti Tutti Smoothie to drink, or Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Ralph Lauren or Giorgio Armani clothes but the practical, necessary, sometimes simple basics. Eggs, peanut butter, mustard, bread, some fruit and veggies. Water, juice, milk. Target, Walmart, JC Pennys, Sears. Nothing exotic, but enough.

If you need a car, God won't necessarily provide a Hummer. A '71 Chevy with missing hubcaps will get you where you need to go.

If you need a place to stay, God won't necessarily open up a bungalow for you at that Beverly Hills Hotel. Maybe crashing on a friend's floor will do…for now.

If you need something to eat, God won't necessarily reserve a table for you at Ruth's Chris Steak House. Maybe the wind blows a five dollar bill to your feet outside Taco Bell.

God will provide practically, but not necessarily extravagantly. The key for us is to appreciate what we receive and recognize it came from God.

We lived near a very well-to-do neighborhood. A mile from us, in an area called Isleworth, sat a mansion community worthy of the Beverly Hillbillies. The residents included such elite as Shaquille O'Neil, Ken Griffey Jr., Mark O'Meara, Wesley Snipes and Tiger Woods. Their gorgeous 25 bedroom houses overlook the lakes.
We lived in a four bedroom rental on a dirt street. You see the contrast. Gazing over fences only increases our dissatisfaction with our current situation.

This really hit home for us several years ago when a missionary we support in Kenya visited our home in Kissimmee, a tiny 3 bedroom with less than 1,300 square feet and a pool. We talked about our desire for a larger home, with three growing, active boys. It was too small. Too tight. Not for us.

The missionary looked around in awe. "In Kenya, this would be a mansion." Okay, we felt pretty bad after that. When I later visited Africa I understood his message completely.

God supplies us with the basics for living. Unfortunately, we get sick of Ramen Noodles, Mac and Cheese and Tuna Fish sandwiches, but it is food and we cannot forget that millions go to bed starving. Our house may be one tenth of the size of Shaq's garage, but it has a roof and air conditioning and trillions live in shacks or on the streets around the world.

Imagine a guy standing up in the 98th row of the feeding of loaves and fishes and shouting:

"Do you have lobster and rye bread?"

Miles from the closest town, without food for three days and this guy places a special order? He missed the point.

Thank God for what He supplies you.

Jesus made good on His word that day. "I promised you the staples of the Jewish diet and here they are. Fish and bread."

The promise of Matthew 6 still holds today. The real question is…do you believe it?

Read it again-Matthew 6:25-34. God promises to provide us with His resources of food, drink and clothing, the necessities for life. He promises and God cannot break a promise.

We don't always believe the promises of other people. On the TV show Survivor, it's interesting to watch the back stabbing and positioning that occurs. One of the most offensive things a person can do on Survivor is to break a promise. Watch any season and you will see it happen. "You promised me that we would go to the final four, now you voted me off!"

While humans break promises, God does not. Our standard for keeping promises should be Jesus Christ. The Old Testament prophecies of His coming were promises all fulfilled. Jesus promised to die and return. He did that.

My family knows Matthew 6 very well. We quote it. We believe it. We hang on to it for our dear lives. In all my years, God has not broken this promise. To live with this verse at the core of my being, I had to understand these statements:

1. It may not be what I want, but it is what I need.
2. It may not arrive when I want, but it arrives in time.
3. It may not come to me how I want, but it comes nonetheless.

We must set aside our expectations and expect only God's promise.

This promise comes with an expectation on our part, though. We must seek Him first. God's doesn't provide for everyone, all the time. Only those that follow him.

I had to ask myself how much I believed this promise during a mission trip to Tanzania, Africa. We were asked to visit a witch doctor's house hut outside Mwanza. Hearing those words, "witch doctor," caused a lump in my throat. What was this guy like? Wild eyed, spitting fire, and casting spells on me?

When I first met him, some of my wild fantasies proved true. He was a deeply scarred man, with no right hand and a left hand distorted and twisted, with only two fingers functioning. Every time he talked, the other members of his family laughed and cackled, giving us chills (they spoke Swahili and our translators didn't always translate what they were saying). He spoke of the evil spirits, that they would not be happy if he accepted Christ. Then he said something that showed he was really just an average guy with average needs and wants:

"If I accept this Jesus, I have to give up my job. I can no longer be a witch doctor. How will I make a living? I have no hands. What work can I do?"

I stopped and thought. That morning our devotions talked about the promises of Matthew 6. I hesitated. Do I really believe this? Is God going to take care of a witch doctor in Tanzania with no hands?

I asked the translator to read the promise to him. The witch doctor sat silently. After that he became less resistant. The giggling subsided. His wife later accepted Christ and the witch doctor prayed for the evil spirits to stop tormenting him.

The final key to God's resources is found in a little boy. God provides our resources when we give up our resources.

Only John mentions the source of the loaves and fish (John 6:9)…a small boy. The "five loaves of bread and two fish" did not come from the disciples' pockets, but from a boy, the only person smart enough to pack a lunch. The boy began the process of giving by giving.

Five loaves and two fish can last one person a long time. It's a very satisfying meal.

The boy probably looked at the five loaves and two fish as nothing much. When asked if he had any food on him, he probably thought that Jesus wanted something to eat. What's a few morsels for a Messiah feeding them words of eternal life? He had no idea the extent of his surrender.

The boy released his assurance and security and placed them in the hands of Jesus and his disciples. Imagine his face as he watched thousands of fish and loaves of bread pouring out into the crowd, passed from hand to hand. Imagine as the boy stood in awe while men, women and children laughed and ate, celebrating God and His bounty. A hillside party broke out and they had a boy to thank. While many probably did not know his sacrifice, the boy was able to experience the multiplication of his simple gift.

The satisfaction he received at that moment far exceeded a full stomach.

Think of it, God actually wants to use us in this process. He wants what little we have, so we can witness how much He has. If we look around and wonder why we have so little, we must ask how much we've given. Are we, like the boy, ready to give it all?

This final key makes absolutely no sense when we have so little to give. Imagine a beggar walking up to Donald Trump on a New York City street and saying, "Hey I got ten dimes today, I thought I would give you one." How would Donald Trump act?

Threatened? "Get this bum away from me!"

Offended? "How dare you? Who do you think I am?"

Touched…? "You are willing to give me a tenth of what little you have? You're hired!"

I really don't know what the Donald would do, but I would imagine he would be moved by the beggar's generosity and return the blessing with maybe a fifty dollar bill, a job, a limo ride?

If we attribute that sort of heart to someone like Donald Trump, how do we think God would react when we give to the owner and creator of the whole universe? Do you think God is moved when we dig deep into our petty resources and tithe to a church or give to others? You bet.

One of the ways to seek God is by giving to Him. Now I know what you are saying, "But I've got next to nothing." It means more when you give from less.

MK 12:41 Jesus sat down across from the place where people put their temple offerings. He watched the crowd putting their money into the offering boxes. Many rich people threw large amounts into them.
MK 12:42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins. They were worth much less than a penny.
MK 12:43 Jesus asked his disciples to come to him. He said, "What I'm about to tell you is true. That poor widow has put more into the offering box than all the others. 44 They all gave a lot because they are rich. But she gave even though she is poor. She put in everything she had. She gave all she had to live on." Mark 12:41-43

Like the poor widow you gave a few pennies at the temple and the boy who released his entire lunch to Jesus, I must release my resources, relying on His resources and His promises instead.

Car engines are my mortal enemy. If I'm standing on the side of the road, holding a screwdriver, in front of my smoking car and a mechanic walks up with the power to fix it, how can anything get done if I hold on the screwdriver? I must release it into his capable hands.

"We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered.
"Bring them here to me," he said. - Matthew 14:17-18

The process of giving it to Jesus is a release of all rights, results, ability and ownership.

It is a confession of your weakness and an acknowledgement of God's strength.

Lord, all I have here is yours. You do with it whatever you want. It's not much, but in your hands I know it is a lot.

If we cannot turn over the little we resources have, it will be difficult to turn over the many resources He can produce.

The key here is faith, giving to God what is useless in your possession.

I wonder what Jesus would have done if the disciples responded as such:

Jesus: Bring them the loaves and fishes to me.
Disciple 1: What are you going to do?
Jesus: Just bring them, please.
Disciple 1: Are you going to eat them?
Jesus: You'll see. Just bring it.
Disciple 1: I don't know. I'm kinda hungry. You might drop them.
Jesus: (deep, angry sigh)

If that one disciple held back on the collected morsels of fish and bread, 15,000 people would have gone un-fed. The greatest miracle in the Bible thwarted by the stubbornness of one disciple who would not release his resources to Christ.

Honestly, it's tough to give up all you have. In some ways, it doesn't make sense to say…

"We need lots more fish and we only have a few here, so let's give it to Christ."
"I have no time except a few hours a week, so I'll give that to Christ."
"My check is low and I need to pay bills, so I'll start by giving to the church first."

Ridiculous? Seems so at first, but it's actually the wisest choice you can ever make.

Give it to God. Put it in His hands. It honors God by showing Him trust, love and faith. He's got so much more to give you.

TABLE TALK: "My dad is a small town pastor with seven kids so we have never been what you would call affluent. I recently left my home for a summer job 5000 miles away with about $.25 in my purse. Do to weather problems I got stuck at the airport all night with no food. Amazingly enough, I ran into a Christian lady who bought me supper, and I managed to get a hold of some friends where I could stay the night. I learned so much about God's protection and support that night; I really found that I don't have to worry but just trust in God to take care of me-what's the worst that can happen when God is watching out for you?" Vera

TABLE TALK: "God has always given me a place to lay my head down at night. It may not be a green pasture by still waters (Psalm 23). He also has provided me with food and nutrition, It may have not been what I was desiring but it was good enough so I did not go to bed hungry." Joey

TABLE TALK: "Don't get me wrong, I love my make-up, hair dye, hair style, jewelry, and pretty clothes. But I love God more. I can leave those things behind, and have the potential someday to get them again. Material things can be replaced, but God's Grace, is an ever constant reality for me. Like the song says 'Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me...' God knows best what I am meant to do in service for him, and like wise, he will use me when I know and have experienced what it is that I need to know to be the most effective for his glory!" Kay

This entire book is written. If you would like to see more, please contact Troy or Mark.

© Troy Schmidt, 2006