Provision

Fine dining typically means splurging a little for high-quality meat or fresh seafood. But what if money were truly no object?

Restaurant owners and chefs around the world create original dining experiences for those who want unique experiences. You know, like spending nearly $10,000 on a pizza or $1,000 on an ice cream sundae.

Here are a few of the world’s most expensive meals:

• Masa — New York. Dinner Omakase menu per person: $750 sushi-eating experience.

• SubliMotion —Dubai. Dinner per person: around $2,000. That’s more than the average family will spend for an entire month on food.

• De Daltons – The Netherlands. The Golden Boy Burger: $5,532.79. Chef Robbert Jan de Veen’s “The Golden Boy” is made with 100% Wagyu A5 meat, as well as Beluga caviar, king crab, Spanish Paleta Ibérico, white truffle, and English cheddar.

• Renato Viola — Salerno, Italy. Louis XIII Pizza: $9,184.32. Pizza toppings include: mozzarella di bufala, lobster, and caviar all flown in from all different parts of the world.

• The Fortress Resort and Spa — Sri Lanka. The Fortress Stilt Fisherman Indulgence Dessert: $14,500. The dessert features Italian cassata flavored with Irish cream with a pomegranate and mango compote. The base is adorned with an 80-carat aquamarine stone.

Possible Preaching Angles:

(1) Salvation and The Lord's Supper—They're both offered free of charge (although Jesus paid the price that we could never have paid), and the Lord's Supper is better than anything on this list. (2) Social Justice—While millions of people are malnourished, a few people can afford outrageously expensive, luxurious meals. (3) Simplicity; Provision—God promised to provide daily bread, not daily slice of "Louis XIII" pizza. (4) Hospitality—Hospitality is more about love and openness than about trying to offer a "world's best meal." Encourage people to keep it simple.

U.S. politics continue to be a chaotic subject, and a new poll finds the majority of Americans are rapidly losing faith in their country’s leaders. Over seven in 10 people say there’s no one they trust to save them from an end-of-the-world event.

If you’re thinking of creating your own Doomsday checklist, researchers found that the most popular items people are stocking up on include water (41%), warm clothing (39%), and extra food (38%). Additionally, one in 10 think they’ll need some extra cash when the world ends.

To decipher which U.S. states are prepping for doomsday, surveyors examined the extent of Americans’ preparations and survival plans. Leading the pack, Nebraska emerged as the most prepared, with 51% of respondents indicating they’ve begun or are considering doomsday preparations. Montana and New Mexico also rank highly on the list of states preparing for catastrophic events, with 50% and 47% of their residents, respectively, making or contemplating preparations.

Financially, the majority of respondents invested between $1,000 to $4,999 in disaster preparations, with a few in states like Montana and New Mexico splurging up to $10,000. For those feeling the urgency to prepare, researchers emphasize the importance of storing water, food, shelter, medical supplies, and hygiene items.

“I gotta share this just to show you how cold G.O.D. is,” said Tracy Lynn Curry, posting on the social media X employing the hip-hop slang usage for cold as a synonym for cool, meaning “skilled, effective, talented, or great.”

Curry is known throughout the hip-hop world by his stage name, The D.O.C. He has been a critically acclaimed producer, collaborating with Ice Cube and Dr. Dre for some of the biggest hits in west coast rap during the early 90s.

But all of his dreams of rap stardom stopped after a car accident left him with a badly damaged larynx. The D.O.C. continued to contribute to the hip-hop scene as a producer and ghostwriter, but was never able to recover the unique voice that sent him to the top of the charts.

Until now, that is. Curry’s announcement on social media was for a new album that he’s producing in conjunction with the firm Suno, who will use existing recordings to recreate an AI version of his voice. In an interview on CBS Mornings with Michelle Miller, Curry explained that it was his old friend Fab 5 Freddy who convinced him to get on board. “When this thing happens, it sounds like the real me,” Curry said to one of the Suno software engineers.

As part of the segment, Miller also interviewed Mikey Scholman, Suno’s CEO, about the AI being taught to emulate Curry’s voice. When she asked about potential ethical considerations, Scholman defended the project, calling it “a slam dunk. ... Letting D.O.C. recreate the voice that has been in his head that he hasn’t been able to get out there for the last 35 years – I can’t think of a better usage of this technology than that.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

No tragedy is so great or so long ago that God cannot redeem it for good. God wants to take your place of wounding and use it to accomplish that which would seem impossible, because with God nothing is impossible.

Traveling from Niagara Falls to Washington D.C., a tour group of 10 South Koreans got stuck driving in a blizzard near Buffalo. Two of the group went to a local house to ask for a shovel to dislodge their vehicle.

It was Christmas Eve when Alex Campagna heard their frantic knocking on his door. Outside was “the worst blizzard I’ve experienced - it was the Darth Vader of storms.” Knowing the folly of trying to carry on, he invited them all inside, putting them up on couches, air mattresses, and sleeping bags.

Eager to repay his kindness, the guests cooked several South Korean meals like stir-fried pork, and dakdori tang, a spicy chicken stew. As it turns out Campagna and his wife really like Korean food and actually happened to have some of the more extravagant ingredients on hand.

The Times reports they waited out the blizzard and stayed Friday and Saturday. They swapped stories, and even enjoyed some American football matches on Christmas Eve. On Christmas day drivers came to pick up the tour group and took them to New York for some impromptu flights.

“We have enjoyed this so much,” said Choi Yoseob, a member of the group who described the experience as unforgettable and a “unique blessing.”

Possibly overlooked by many is the fact that on at least one occasion, Jesus cooked for his disciples. John 21:9 records that the disciples had been out fishing. When they came to shore, they found Jesus on the beach with a meal. “When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.”

Avery Gilbert, psychologist and fragrance scientist, writes that cooking is much more than just preparing a meal, it is an invitation. The savory notes of roasted meat and baked bread stimulate us enroute to a meal.

Food aroma is an invitation and a spur to action. Even before the first bite, it triggers an elaborate sequence of physiological events: salivation, insulin release by the pancreas, and the secretion of various digestive juices. The aroma of bacon, at a level so faint it can’t be consciously identified, has been shown to trigger the flow of saliva.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Jesus offers everyone an open invitation to eat and drink with him. “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” (Rev. 3:20). “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Rev. 19:9).

Singer/Songwriter Sandra McCracken writes in CT magazine:

There’s a call button above every seat on commercial airplanes. In all my travels, I don’t think I’ve ever used it. I’m not sure if that is due to shyness or to pride, as there have certainly been times when I acutely needed help while seated.

While traveling recently, for example, I endured some delays and was thirsty. Yet I waited to ask for anything until the plane reached 10,000 feet, when the flight attendants came row by row to grant our drink requests. I didn’t press the call button. It always seems more courteous to wait.

As Jesus hung on the Cross, one of the last phrases he spoke out loud was “I am thirsty” (John 19:28). This three-word inclusion in the Gospels is a subtle yet significant acknowledgment of Jesus’ human need. His thirst dignifies our humanity. He offered up this holy complaint, a declaration of his physical need. He pushed the call button.

God is the one who is responsible to supply our needs (Ps. 23:1; Phil. 4:19). Jesus invites us to participate, to receive, and to ask. Sometimes we are to ask and ask again (Luke 11:9; 18:1–8).

Jesus invites us to hit the call button. And he invites us to wait for him, sometimes well beyond when the plane has reached 10,000 feet. Ask and wait. Hope and receive. The springs of living water that he gives will never run dry.

In a message at the Carolinas Regional Chapter of The Gospel Coalition, Andy Davis offered the following:

I was reading Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage speaking about the Lewis and Clark expedition. One of the chapters talked about preparing for the expedition. Meriwether Lewis was meeting with President Thomas Jefferson. They were going to be going from St. Louis all the way to the Pacific Ocean to explore the new Louisiana Purchase that had been bought from Napoleon.

President Jefferson and Lewis were talking together about the expedition, how it would proceed up the Missouri River, what they would need to cross the Rocky Mountains and descend the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean and then return.

The team would have to do this as a self-contained unit and once the expedition left St. Louis, Lewis would be stuck with the decisions that he had made during the planning process. How many men would he need? With what skills? How big a boat? What design? What type of rifle, how much powder, how much lead? How many cooking pots, what tools? How much dry or salted rations could be carried? What medicines in what quantity? What scientific instruments would they need? How many fishing hooks? How much salt? How much tobacco and whiskey?

Think of all of that foresight and planning required to make the great unknown and perilous journey from St. Louis up eventually to the Pacific.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God has provided the equipment we would need for the journey to the new heaven and new earth, and he put everything that we would need for it in Scripture.

In his book, The Art of Prayer, Timothy Jones tells the story of his friend, Jeanie Hunter:

In … 1983, surgery to have a tumor removed from my ear, left a facial nerve severely damaged, causing paralysis and weakness on the left side of my face. My hearing was so affected that I had to wear a hearing aid. The nerve controlling taste was cut so that food tasted like wet cardboard. And my middle ear was injured, leaving a constant ringing. On top of all this, I was so dizzy I had to spend most of the day in bed or lying on the couch.

(In) 1987, someone from my church called and asked if I was going to attend the Wednesday morning service. ... I finally agreed. As I drove to the church, I could sense a voice saying, “This could be the last time you drive to the church sick.” I knew the medical community had done all it could. Could it be possible that Jesus would heal me?

[At the close of the service Jeanie went forward for prayer.] My prayer was “Lord, please either heal me or let me die. I just cannot live with this illness any longer.” When I opened my eyes, I saw I was bathed in light. Then from the middle of the light, God sent a washing of love that penetrated every part of my being. As I stood in the light, it was as though I could see 4-inch-tall letters that read, “YOU ARE HEALED.”

Suddenly I found my hearing aid on my lap. For the first time I was able to hear without it. The noise in my head and the dizziness vanished. Feeling in my extremities had returned. I could actually walk through a door without hitting the door frame. And taste! It came back in a little over a month, while I was licking envelopes in the office. That evening, as my daughter and I went up and down the aisles of the supermarket, I kept opening the packages as I threw them into the cart. I hadn't tasted food for four years, and I couldn't wait!

A poll taken by the British Nutrition Foundation questioned 27,500 children and youth aged five to sixteen about the origins of food. According to a summary of the survey in a BBC article, almost a third of UK primary pupils think cheese is made from plants and a quarter think fish fingers come from chicken or pigs, suggests a survey. Nearly one in 10 secondary pupils thinks tomatoes grow underground.

The survey also revealed confusion about the source of staples such as pasta and bread among younger pupils, with about a third of five-to-eight-year-olds believing that they are made from meat. About 19 percent of this age group did not realize that potatoes grew underground, with 10% thinking they grew on bushes or trees.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) God, creator; Thanksgiving—It's even more tragic when children (and adults) don't understand the ultimate source of food. (2) Farming; Agriculture—This illustration also sets up Jesus' parables involving agriculture—we don't live in an agricultural society so we'll have to imagine what it was like in the world of Scripture.

Lake Tahoe is the eighth deepest lake in the world. On July 4, 1875, two men discovered the deepest point in the lake to be 1645 feet by lowering a weighted champagne bottle on fishing line from the side of their boat. Following the invention of sonar, soundings by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that depth. Lake Tahoe is so large that if the lake were tipped over, its contents would cover California in 14.5 inches of water. Tahoe could provide every person in the United States with 50 gallons of water per day for five years. The evaporation from Tahoe over the course of one year could supply a city the size of Los Angeles for five years. And Lake Tahoe is a small lake compared to Lake Superior (120 times as large) and the world's largest lake, the Caspian Sea (576 times as large).

Your use of water could never personally exhaust the limits of Lake Tahoe. But God has no limits. Whatever your need you can never exhaust God's supply.

In an issue of Christianity Today, a Muslim man describes his commitment to follow Isa al Masih, Jesus the Messiah. Suprisingly, a rather "ordinary" miracle caused this man to open his heart to Jesus. Here's how he described the miracle:

One night the only food my wife and I had was a small portion of macaroni. My wife prepared it very nicely. Then one of her friends knocked on the door. I told myself, The macaroni is not sufficient for even the two of us, so how will it be enough for three of us? But because we have no other custom, we opened the door, and she came in to eat with us.

While we were eating, the macaroni started to multiply; it became full in the bowl. I suspected that something was wrong with my eyes, so I started rubbing them. I thought maybe my wife hid some macaroni under the small table, so I checked, but there was nothing. My wife and I looked at each other, but because the guest was there we said nothing.

Afterward I lay down on the bed, and as I slept, Isa came to me and asked me, "Do you know who multiplied the macaroni?" I said, "I don't know." He said, "I am Isa al Masih [Jesus, the Messiah]. If you follow me, not only the macaroni but your life will be multiplied."

Think of your favorite food. Steak perhaps. Or Thai green curry. Or ice cream. Or homemade apple pie. God could have just made fuel. He could have made us to be sustained by some kind of savory biscuit. Instead he gave a vast and wonderful array of foods.

Food is a central experience of God's goodness …. The world is more delicious than it needs to be. We have a superabundance of divine goodness and generosity. God went over the top. We don't need the variety we enjoy, but he gave it to us out of sheer exuberant joy and grace.

Kyle Idleman writes in “Not a Fan”:

When I started a new church in Los Angeles County, California, I found that I was overwhelmed with pressure and stress. I was working more than seventy hours a week. My wife would ask me to take a day off, and I would say, "I can't." I wasn't sleeping at night, and I started to take sleeping pills. When the church was about a year old, I woke up in the night, and I had this strange sense that God was laughing at me. As I lay in bed, I wondered, Why is God laughing at me?

It would take five years before I finally got an answer to that question. Here's how it happened: when we moved into our current house, I saved the heaviest piece of furniture for last—the desk from my office. As I was pushing and pulling the desk with all my might, my four-year-old son came over and asked if he could help. So together we started sliding it across the floor. He was pushing and grunting as we inched our way along. After a few minutes, my son stopped pushing, looked up at me, and said, "Dad, you're in my way." And then he tried to push the desk by himself. Of course it didn't budge. Then I realized that he thought he was actually doing all the work, instead of me. I couldn't help but laugh.

The moment I started laughing at my son's comment, I recalled that middle-of-the-night incident and I realized why God was laughing at me. I thought I was pushing the desk. I know that's ridiculous, but instead of recognizing God's power and strength, I started to think it all depended on me.

Keith Hartsell of Wheaton, Illinois shared the following experience:

I was with a friend a few years ago in California, and as we were driving around the busy streets of L.A., I noticed that his cell phone was locked with an unusual password—pro nobis. I asked him what pro nobis meant and why he chose that for a password. He told me it was Latin and it meant "For Us" and then he suddenly started choking up. I thought, Why would those two Latin words cause so much emotion?

He composed himself and then explained that after walking through deep personal pain, true healing came when he learned that God is "for us"—or the Latin phrase pro nobis. My friend said that after his parents' divorce, a season when he assumed that God didn't care or that God had given up on him, he finally found hope through those two simple words. When he decided to believe that God was pro nobis, that God had even sent Christ to die for him, he could then decide to lay down his life for others.

As he looks back on his long life, Jayber Crow, the main character in Wendell Berry's novel, reflects on how God's guidance and providence often catch us by surprise.

I can't look back from where I am now and feel that I have been very much in charge of my life …. I have made plans enough, but I see now that I have never lived by plan …. Nearly everything that has happened to me has happened by surprise. All the important things have happened by surprise. And whatever has been happening usually has happened before I had time to expect it …. And so when I have thought I was in my story or in charge of it, I really have been only on the edge of it, carried along. Is this because we are in an eternal story that is happening [only] partly in time?

E. V. (Ed) Hill, who pastored Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, tells the story of how "Mama's" love and prayers changed his life. During the height of the Depression, Hill's real mother, who had five children of her own, didn't have enough food to go around, so she sent four-year-old Ed to live with a friend in a small country town called Sweet Home. Ed just called her Mama. As he was growing up in Sweet Home, Mama displayed remarkable faith which led her to have big plans for young Ed. Against nearly insurmountable obstacles, Mama helped Ed graduate from high school (the only student to graduate that year from the country school) and even insisted that he go to college.

She took Ed to the bus station, handed him the ticket and five dollars and said, "Now, go off to Prairie View College, and Mama is going to be praying for you." Hill claims that he didn't know much about prayer, but he knew Mama did. When he arrived at the college with a dollar and ninety cents in his pocket, they told him he needed eighty dollars in cash in order to register. Here's how Hill describes what happened next:

I got in line …, and the devil said to get out of line …, but I heard my Mama saying in my ear, "I'll be praying for you." I stood in line on Mama's prayer. Soon there was [another new student ahead of me], and I began to get nervous, but I stayed in line …. Just about the time [the other student] got all of her stuff and turned away, Dr. Drew touched me on the shoulder, and he said, "Are you Ed Hill?" I said, "Yes." "Are you Ed Hill from Sweet Home?" "Yes." "Have you paid yet?" "Not quite."

"We've been looking for you all this morning," [he said].

I said, "Well, what do [you] want with me?"

"We have a four-year scholarship that will pay your room and board, your tuition, and give you thirty dollars a month to spend."

And I heard Mama say, "I will be praying for you!"

Fred and Cheryl went to Haiti 25 years ago to pick up a child they had adopted. Addie was five-years-old. Her parents had been killed in a traffic accident that left her without a family. As she walked across the tarmac to board the plane, the tiny orphan reached up and slipped her hands into the hands of her new parents whom she had just met. Later they told us of this "birth" moment, how the innocent, fearless trust expressed in that physical act of grasping their hands seemed almost as miraculous as the times their two sons slipped out of the birth canal 15 and 13 years earlier.

That evening, back home in Arizona, they sat down to their first supper together with their new daughter. There was a platter of pork chops and a bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. After the first serving, the two teenage boys kept refilling their plates. Soon the pork chops had disappeared and the potatoes were gone. Addie had never seen so much food on one table in her whole life. Her eyes were big as she watched her new brothers, Thatcher and Graham, satisfy their ravenous teenage appetites.

Fred and Cheryl noticed that Addie had become very quiet and realized that something was wrong—agitation … bewilderment … insecurity? Cheryl guessed that it was the disappearing food. She suspected that because Addie had grown up hungry, when food was gone from the table she might be thinking that it would be a day or more before there was more to eat. Cheryl had guessed right. She took Addie's hand and led her to the bread drawer and pulled it out, showing her a back-up of three loaves. She took her to the refrigerator, opened the door, and showed her the bottles of milk and orange juice, the fresh vegetables, jars of jelly and jam and peanut butter, a carton of eggs, and a package of bacon. She took her to the pantry with its bins of potatoes, onions, and squash, and the shelves of canned goods—tomatoes and peaches and pickles. She opened the freezer and showed Addie three or four chickens, a few packages of fish, and two cartons of ice cream. All the time she was reassuring Addie that there was lots of food in the house, that no matter how much Thatcher and Graham ate and how fast they ate it, there was a lot more where that came from. She would never go hungry again.

Cheryl didn't just tell her that she would never go hungry again. She showed her what was in those drawers and behind those doors, named the meats and vegetables, placed them in her hands. It was enough. Food was there, whether she could see it or not. Her brothers were no longer rivals at the table. She was home. She would never go hungry again.