God supplies — trust Him!

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:25–34)

Fifty plus years ago, Jesus came into my life and one of the first lessons He taught me was that He would meet my needs. I was newly divorced, had no job or hope for one, lived on a farm with my two children, and my ex neglected financial support even for them. I did custom knitting with a machine and painted animal portraits, selling these to buy groceries. That first summer my propane tank rental came due and I did not have the $100 it would cost to heat our home for the winter.

God stepped in. I received a letter from someone in another province. I didn’t know her, or how she got my name. She included a photo of her dog and wanted me to paint its portrait. She also paid in advance — $105, enough to cover postage to send the painting back to her.

God made it plain. If He was at the top of my priority list, I didn’t need to worry about having what I needed. Since then, He has repeatedly kept His Word and taken care of all physical needs. I have a full fridge, a full closet, and lots of clean water, without anxiety about any of such things.

Lord, even when I’ve felt needy about other things, You have taken care of those physical needs too, as proof that You will cover all needs. I just need to trust You. People have told me this does not mean sitting on my backside and waiting for cash to come floating down. How silly. But You honor faith, often with surprises that go above and beyond my expectations. May all Your children know that Your love covers needs and sometimes even wants. Truly I am blessed and sometimes call myself ‘God's spoiled brat’ because of Your mercy.

 

Obedience and blessings

Then King David rose to his feet and said: “Hear me, my brothers and my people. I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord and for the footstool of our God, and I made preparations for building. But God said to me, ‘You may not build a house for my name, for you are a man of war and have shed blood.’ Yet the Lord God of Israel chose me from all my father’s house to be king over Israel forever. For he chose Judah as leader, and in the house of Judah my father’s house, and among my father’s sons he took pleasure in me to make me king over all Israel. And of all my sons (for the Lord has given me many sons) he has chosen Solomon my son to sit on the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel. He said to me, ‘It is Solomon your son who shall build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. I will establish his kingdom forever if he continues strong in keeping my commandments and my rules, as he is today.’ Now therefore in the sight of all Israel, the assembly of the Lord, and in the hearing of our God, observe and seek out all the commandments of the Lord your God, that you may possess this good land and leave it for an inheritance to your children after you forever. (1 Chronicles 28:2–8)

David was the king and yet forbidden to built the house of the Lord. As king, this seemed out of line. Yet even though it was on his heart, God said NO and David was okay with that. He accepted his lot in life and obeyed God. His response to this is remarkable.

Not only that, he turned it into sound advice for others, telling them to obey God because that is key to the good life for ourselves and our children. Most humans try to make that good life happen by our own efforts, but…

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

Running my life my way will lead to misery because my own way is sin. Why is it so easy to believe Satan when he whispers “God does not want the best for you” and forget that He died for me that I might have an abundant life and the ability to live His way?

This week I told my pastor that God gave me an easily distracted mind for a reason, not that I would be distracted from the truth but that I would need to constantly read it from His word because that is the only way I can remember it. I accept my weakness because He uses it for good.

Jesus, I am thankful for my mother’s mantra, “We must need it or we wouldn’t be getting it.” It is a biblical attitude that put the idea in my heart to accept whatever You and life throw at me, and to look for Your good reasons for letting things happen. You DO want the best for me, even when it comes as an unpleasant trial to prompt a heart search. Thank You, thank You.

 

 

I’ve had Sufficient

 

When offered a second helping at the table, a Norwegian friend always says, “I have had SUFFICIENT” and we chuckle, remembering this is her polite way of telling us she is stuffed and could not eat another thing.

Her words remind me of God’s words and what a good reminder, not for when I am stuffed but when I feel empty and without the resources needed for the challenges before me.

Paul said it this way:

2 Corinthians 12:7–9. “To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations (or to keep me from being full of myself), a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

The word sufficient appears only a few times in English Bibles, but the Scriptures are filled with the idea of God being enough, supplying enough, often in contrast with human inadequacy yet also expressing that God’s supply will take care of all needs.

This was true when God called for donations to the construction of the OT tabernacle. The response was so great that Moses commanded, “Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary” and “the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more.” He supplied and they gave!

God promised sufficient supply of crops and other needs and told His people to be generous to others who are in need. Deuteronomy 15:7–8 says,

“If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.”

My sister taught me by her example that God is the supply so we can freely give because if we need whatever it was that we gave to others, He will replace it with more. This reality is expressed in Malachi 3:10.

“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”

The NT tells me not to worry about tomorrow for today’s problems are sufficient but it also tells me that the grace of God is enough for the issues of life, particularly to serve Him with the right attitude — an attitude given by the Holy Spirit:

2 Corinthians 3:4–6. “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. The glory of God is almost always the opposite of what human reasoning thinks it might be. That is, His power is not the same as human boldness where our sense of being unable goes away. The verse that says “His grace is sufficient for me for His power is perfected in weakness” means that in order to experience His sufficiency, I must be and feel weak. Weak is defined as being incapacitated by a lack of physical, natural, or any other qualifications. The idea is helplessness, without a sense of any resources at all. If that were not enough of a challenge, God has shown me that when His power is active in me, that sense of being weak remains. Only God’s Spirit and faith is telling me to say or do something but the rest of me shouts that I cannot. By faith, the next verse is the only way to experience God’s sufficiency in such situations; I must be willing, even welcome to being a weak person:

2 Corinthians 12:10. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.