My favorite thing to do when I visit any dining hall on campus is to save a little extra money in my meal swipe for snacks. It’s an efficient way to get as much pasta as my stomach can hold… plus an extra bag of chips or container of ramen on the side. Some sort of pack rat tendency inside of me wants to hoard away as many shelf-stable goodies—like canned tuna or pop tarts—as my meal swipe will allow. 

I first realized that this collecting game had turned into a bad habit when I was able to supply a 25 person college class with two cardboard boxes full of ho-hos, skittles, chips, and every other kind of college junk food imaginable. My collecting frenzy eventually developed into an Instagram page of perfect meal swipes (snacks included) to make sure that students like me were getting their bang for their buck. I never expected there to be other meal and snack searching friends like me out there on Ball State’s campus, but turns out there were hundreds. And they were following my Instagram page. 

I think, for me, my snack food craze is mainly motivated by fear. I buy an extra Uncrustable with the thought of “well, I might not have time to come back later” or “what if the dining hall just magically disappears and I’m stranded without any access to food whatsoever? Better to just buy that extra pop tart now, just in case.” 

I buy snack food because I refuse to rely on daily bread. 

When the Israelites were wandering in the desert and God provided them manna, He gave them very strict rules on when to gather and how much to gather. They were living literally meal to meal, garnering a closer relationship with and dependence on God as the source of their life. We live in a world of modern marvels like potato chips in airtight containers and are much more removed from the natural process of our food—both in where it comes from and how it decomposes. The Israelites were living ration to ration. Because of processed food, I don’t have to. 

But I do live meal swipe to meal swipe. 

No matter how much I try to assert my own independence through a stash of junk food, the truth is I am entirely reliant on someone else for my food. What’s more, I’m entirely reliant on an institution for my food and deep down, that terrifies me. Sometimes I’ll try to get clever and buy a whole extra meal when I don’t want or need it. That happened today—I only wanted sushi, but I also talked myself into getting a salad, green beans, a bottle of water, and some perogies. The perogies are still languishing in my fridge, untouched. I will probably end up throwing them away, like I’ve done with many other foods that I bought out of fear. 

I am afraid of not having enough food, which is ironic given that I am surrounded by it constantly. I am afraid that I am not going to be able to take care of myself. I am worried, consistently, that God will not provide me with my daily bread. 

Fortunately, though, no matter how many times I have panicked and bought a bag of pretzels, no matter how scared or hungry or anxious I have been, the dining hall has always been there the next day, waiting patiently and still full of food. Just like the manna in the wilderness, it is always there at God’s provision the next day for us to eat. I’m hoping now to use my meal swipes not as a way to stock my pantry but as a prayer, to really dig into what Jesus meant when he said “Give us this day our daily bread.” 

Or, in this case, our daily meal swipes. 

With no hoarded Poptarts on the side.