But after he had taken the census, David’s conscience began to bother him. And he said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly by taking this census. Please forgive my guilt, Lord, for doing this foolish thing.” (2 Samuel 24:10)God punished David for counting all of his people so he could be proud of the great country of which he was king. The Lord had told him to just be king and let him (God) worry about the people.
A few years ago, I decided to count all of the meat I had in my freezer and put a list on the door of everything I had. I did so and realized that, even though I only had a little bit of money, I had a lot of meat.
Back in the 1990’s, we began to feed people. And we found that the more people we fed, the more food we had. I usually (unless it is on super sale) only buy marked down meat. So we had a lot of meat because we fed a lot of people. We were generous, so God was generous to us.
And we fed everybody. We would have at time upwards of 35 people eating with us. I mastered the art of “big, cheap food,” or food with high macaroni or rice content. Spaghetti, chili mac, jambalaya – that sort of thing.
We had decided early on that, even though we may qualify for food stamps, we would not take them. I felt they were a slap in God’s face. It was like saying that he didn’t give me enough so we had to go to the government to get more.
And God blessed us.
Then I took a “census” of all our frozen meat. And we almost ran out. We got down to a pound of hamburger and I had repented what I had done. Then the Lord started giving us meat again.
I never did it again. And we have a freezer that has quite a bit of meat in it. Considering the fact that we have less money now than ever that is a move of God.
And we still feed people. We have found ourselves to be the hospitality arm of the church we attend. We are the only ones in the whole church that has people over for dinner. And we have had a major part of the church over.
Quite frankly, it is hardly ever reciprocated, but that doesn’t really matter. We do it because it is our ministry, not to get people to invite us over.
But we rely on his grace and on his plenitude. He gives and we give. We have no real money to give in the contribution plate, but we give of food and we give of time.
And he blesses us. I know our food supply is not miraculous, but I do know it comes from the Father above.
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