It is a given that people must eat physical food to live. There is no debate about this reality. It is a maxim—a statement that is generally true—which means there may be exceptions.

In John 4, we may have an exception. This text records the story of Jesus meeting with a Samaritan woman. Jesus was on a trip. He was hungry and thirsty and stopped to rest and to eat lunch. While his disciples went into town to buy food, Jesus waited near a water well. He did not have a bucket to draw water for a drink. A woman was there with a bucket, so he asked her for a drink of water. This led to an interchange between Jesus and the woman that transformed her, which is no real surprise since anyone who truly meets Jesus is transformed. But perhaps the most startling truth is what happened to Jesus.

As far as we can tell, during this dialogue with the woman, Jesus never drank any physical water or ate any physical food. Nevertheless, when the disciples returned with lunch, Jesus stated that he had food to eat that they knew nothing about (John 4:32)—not physical food but spiritual food. He defined spiritual food as obedience to God (see the text above). With this statement, Jesus not only connected physical reality and spiritual reality, but he also demonstrated that spiritual reality could meet physical needs. This is an amazing truth—one that is difficult for us to grasp, particularly in the workplace. How can spiritual food meet physical needs in the workplace?

The default worldview of the workplace is either naturalism or deism (for definitions see Gleanings, July 2010). The former is the atheistic view and the latter is the theistic view. In practice, both worldviews interpret physical phenomena based on cause and effect in the physical realm. But in John 4, Jesus demonstrated that physical needs could be met through spiritual means.

Note that Jesus was doing the will of the Father in the physical world, that is, he was obeying God’s will according to God’s ways. In so doing, the Father set up a divine encounter that served to meet physical needs. Can we expand our worldview to include this reality? If we are doing God’s will according to God’s ways then we can expect that God might meet some of our physical needs through spiritual means—events and circumstances that defy physical explanation.

To live well in God's universe, it is a maxim that man must have both physical and spiritual food.

Here is your business tip. Live like Jesus, who always sought to do the will of God according to the ways of God. He discerned both the will of God and the ways of God through prayer and study of the Bible. Hence, make prayer and Bible study a habit in your organization. When your organization is committed to discerning and doing the will of God according to the ways of God, then you may find that some of your physical needs will be met in ways that cannot be explained by physical cause and effect.