Abundance

Oftentimes it seems as though we spend our days saying "there's just not enough..." Fill in the blank...there's just not enough time. There's just not enough money. I just don't have enough patience. I don't have enough help. I don't have enough knowledge. I don't have enough motivation. I don't have enough skill. Our lives become full of this "not enough" rhetoric. The real problem isn't actually that there isn't enough. It's that we are living as though we don't have enough. Our prayer should not be that we are given everything we think we need, but instead that we are given the sense to make good use of everything we've already been given.

My afternoon devotions today were in 2 Kings chapter 4. The woman in the story is devestated because her husband has died and left behind a tremendous debt. Her husband's creditors are now coming to take away her two sons to make them slaves to pay off the debt. She's already lost her husband, now she's about to lose her boys, and she has nothing but a small bit of oil. But that small bit of oil is all she needed...that and God. Those of you who have read the story know that Elisha instructed the woman to gather as many jars as she could find and fill them with the oil that she had (which was only a little bit). She did, and filled all the jars in the town. Then she was able to take them and sell the oil to pay off the debt. Not only did the debt get paid and she got to keep her boys, they also had made enough to live off of.

She had nothing. She didn't have enough time, enough money, enough things. But rather than dwelling on what she didn't have, she was able to trust that God would provide for her and her sons. She took what little she had, put it to good use, and let God do the rest.

What we don't realize is that with God, we always have enough. We need to let go of the attitude of "not enough" and step into the abudance that is already ours. If we are willing to make good use of what we've been given, whether it be time, money, patience, skill, possessions...and trust God to provide everything we need, we will begin to see that there just isn't much that we need. He is sufficient for everything we need. "He will provide all our needs according to His riches and glory." And that's quite a big bank to be drawing from don't you think?

So we need to stop thinking about what we think we need, and focus on the things we've been given and how we can use them for the Glory of God. Only then can we know true abundance.