We Don't Know What We Need

If we’ve learned anything through this coronavirus crisis, it is that Americans don’t know what they need in order to live. The crisis struck quite suddenly, and what did we go out to buy for our survival? Toilet paper! As if that would save us from a sweeping virus. But it isn’t just toilet paper. Liquor stores are inundated with customers clambering after what might be their only chance to get booze to pass the time away in their quarantine. Or there are the stir crazy who up until the last moment, were  going to Hobby Lobby to get those last few crafts, or else they might just die of boredom! It’s a good thing we still have Netflix.

None of these things are necessarily bad in their moderation, but it goes to the heart of the American problem that we truly do not know how to survive, and certainly do not know what it means to have life, unless life involves toilet paper, booze, crafts, and movies. So while none are bad, none will help us to live long-term at the most basic level, and none will in the end give the abundant life.

I certainly am not immune from this. I have bought toilet paper, been to the craft store in preparation for a quarantine, and watched Netflix. But the reality of this crisis and its impact on society has revealed how utterly dependent we are—dependent on each other, society, and ultimately on God. We are only a supply chain away from starvation. Most of us wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of how to survive without a functioning Walmart, or Publix nearby.

This is why Deuteronomy 8 struck me as I read the words of Moses to his people on the brink of entering the Promised Land, saying, “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna...that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”

It is an interesting biblical statement, all at once pointing us back to the reality of our real physical need for food, but at the same time making clear the source that meets that need. For the Hebrews, their supply chain to food was cut off from the world, but was in reality just a step closer to the real Source than the rest of the world.

We have been a privileged and in fact wealthy nation, and all of this wealth is coming to a magnificent, and scary halt. In an instant, we have been made helpless. But the reality is that we have been helpless all along.

Further along in Deuteronomy, Moses writes, “Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth. But you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth.”

I don’t think that this event is happening, necessarily as a direct result of our world’s disobedience—though it does fall within the result of our original sin. But it should, in a sense, awaken us to the reality that we, as a people, not only have no idea how to survive physically, but also we have no idea on our own to live—to truly live. We have not captured the reality, that man does not live by bread alone—bread that comes from the Lord as the source—but by the Word of the Lord. Our life, both physical and spiritual, hangs in the balance, and this moment in our history is a call to us to look to the source and live!