Not As Much

The first two weeks of the new year have been challenging. But Jesus has promised that if we ask, we shall receive. Not just stuff, but answers to questions. But most of the time, not in the way we expect the answers to come.

I have confessed delinquency in church attendance here. But we’ve done our best to keep our word in our giving. Operative phrase there is “done our best.” Sometimes, we fall into the trap of the fear of not having enough.

I wanted out of it. So when the first payday of the year came, we talked about it: we would give, pay our debts and obligations, and do our best to live on what would be left.

But the first paycheck wasn’t big. Still, I kept the word. We were left with little, and whatever savings we still had. It would be a challenging two weeks. But I have been in situations like this before, even worse. And God has never — NEVER — failed. I don’t expect Him to fail now.

But I didn’t figure out what He wanted us to see and learn until a few days ago.

While chatting with my husband one day, he mentioned that he hadn’t been buying additional food, and was pacing himself on what we had packed for him. One evening he told me he just had cheese and crackers and water. That was when it hit me.

“So you’ve found out that you didn’t really need as much as you thought you did?”

A long time ago, I had read Elisabeth Elliott’s Solitude. One of the things she said that has remained with me was: “If God has promised to supply all our needs, then it must follow that what is not supplied is not needed.”

Ouch.

But it’s true, isn’t it? If we just stop and look at what we have now, we will realize that we do have what we need for now. Some say that’s what “give us today our daily bread” means: that we are recognizing that God gives us what we need when we need it.

So we learned to enjoy different things now. We learned again to be grateful for what we have, to be wise in using what we have been given for now. To stop being afraid of the need we see coming, because God has seen that need even before we did, and He has prepared the supply for it.

That is why He is called Provider: One who has seen before. One who sees ahead. And prepares for it.

I can’t see that far. And it’s not that I have no plans or ambitions or dreams, but I know now that it doesn’t matter that I don’t see that far ahead. God has. God does. And He’s ready for it.

And what I need to be on  the look-out for is how He is going to move when the time comes: either He will give me all that I need…or He will satisfy me with what is already there.

He will show me that I did not need as much as I thought I did.

Either way, He meets my needs. And that is MORE THAN ENOUGH!!