In regular math, for example, mortgage plus groceries plus car payment equals checkbook.  Hospital charge plus doctor plus $800.00 straw equals insurance. Many people live in the world of regular math; they happily add and subtract to keep life and its sums nice and tidy. Then along comes the unthinkable, unforeseen, or even the insurmountable, and suddenly the math they’ve always depended on doesn’t work anymore.  The numbers don’t (or won’t or can’t,) add up, and that nice tidy system falls woefully short. 

In regular math, one person cannot feed all the poor in the world.  One person cannot cure all cancer or eradicate the devastation of AIDS.  One person cannot give all the homeless a place to live or educate all the children of our country.  The numbers will never cooperate with us—the problems are too big, too deep, and conventional math, which produces “conventional wisdom,” tells us it’s a fool’s game even to try.

Rarely does regular math encourage, inspire, or motivate us.  On the contrary, looking at the numbers, more often than not, serves to discourage us, disappoint us, and even defeat us.  This is where Divine Math comes it.  Divine Math occurs in all those instances where conventional math fails: when our hearts are broken over our “regular” math difficulties and our souls are longing for something more, something miraculous and divine.

There is a story in the Bible about Jesus feeding a multitude of people who came out to hear him teach.  It was late in the day, the people were hungry and restless, but there was no food.  Then one little boy offers his lunch to try to help feed 5,000 hungry people.  Add it up: two loaves plus three fish does not equal 5,000 people, no matter how many times you try to rework the numbers. Not even Hamburger Helper could make that boy’s lunch stretch far enough. But with Divine Math (our resources plus God’s help), a simple offering by faith can become a bounty that blows up your average multiplication table.

So what could Divine Math do if we utilized it in our own challenges?  How does it bring about fresh brewed living?

I’ve seen Divine Math at work in many instances in my own life, but one that stands out very clearly to me is in regard to the work of World Vision.  Before I became involved with Women of Faith, I spent years applying conventional math to the problem of poverty in the world.  I reasoned, “What good will my few dollars do to solve this huge issue?  How can a little bit of money really change the life of a child born into that kind of poverty?”  As you might imagine, my questions changed nothing in my own life and only prompted inactivity.

But then I took the plunge, and I committed to sponsor a child.  I can’t even begin to tell you the impact of that decision on my life.  With our annual World Vision trip, I have had the opportunity to see first hand the way God has taken my meager loaves and fish and turned them into a feast in the form of fresh water and medicine and education.  It would never make sense on paper; the numbers would never add up.  But I know now it’s Divine Math, and not only am I great believer in it, I’m a continual student of it, as well.

Every day our problems threaten to defeat us.  Whether it is our kids, or the bills, or the car, challenges loom above us like Mt. Everest and cast a huge shadow that can create fear, retreat, and despair.  We allow the problem to win because we’re mired in the “bigness” of it. But with Divine Math, God brings something to the equation, and it ceases to be totally up to you. In his hands, our resources change. They become more, they are able to do more, and we are humbled, grateful, and completely inspired.