For some reason, God has me just surviving financially.
No vacations, No splurging, No dreaming… at least no dreaming anything that costs money.
Yup, for right now, at least, I live on shoestrings.
I guess I shouldn’t be concerned about the talk of his job going away.
But, again, I feel that feeling well up inside the pit of me
You know that one that has clenched fists and worries.
Oh, how I wrestle with holding on to what I can see, touch and “count on.”
Ha, when did I fool myself, again, into believing I can “count on” fleshly things.
Shouldn’t I know better by now who my provider truly is?
How is it that I settle in and love comforts so much?
Comfort foods, cuddly blankets, comfortable jobs, cushy finances
God never promised these things; yet has allowed them in the past.
Then, a while back, the game changed and He demanded my complete trust.
And He provided!
Again and again He provided
When my freezer’s meat drawer was empty, He filled it…
To overflowing…
Again and
Again and
Again.
Oh I lived in the constant state of His generosity and provision.
Our needs were always met.
Our food, the roof over our heads, our clothes never wearing out
Our faith growing in ways I never imagined.
I saw God in ways I had never had the opportunity to in the past.
I knew God saw me in my wilderness, like He saw Hagar.
Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You-Are-the-God-Who-Sees; for she said, “Have I also here seen Him who sees me?” Genesis 16:13
He knew me, He tested me, He grew me.
Yet, here I dwell with a clenched fist trying to hold onto “my idea.”
My idea of what I think is best.
I surrender.
Clenching fists seems easier then crying or being angry…
Or being afraid…
Afraid of being Powerless
Don’t we fear that?
Where you eat straight from the master’s hand
When our very next breath seems to be ordered the moment it’s due, or even the moment after, when it seems late.
I think He waits on purpose, to stretch us beyond what we thought possible, so we couldn’t possibly stretch far enough.
So we could run out… of the shoestrings, and scraps, and money, and breath, and hope, and of ourselves.
All of those things fool me.
All of those things get in the way.
All of those things can limit the new things He wants to do in our lives.
So sometimes He empties our meat drawers and removes our clenched fingers from grasping the fleshly…
To fill them
With His idea. One that leaves us overflowing with hope, faith, purpose.
One to know, what is feels like to be “known” in a wilderness place
And one that now knows confidence in the orchestrator of our days and nights.
“You’re the God of my days, the King of my nights
Lord of my laughter, sovereign in sorrow
You’re the Prince of my praise, the love of my life
You never leave me, You are faithful, God of my days.”
Song: Gateway Worship “God Of My Days”
Trusting Him, with confidence, no matter what the horizons hold, comes from the experiences that build the “knowing.”
The “knowing” Him as Jehovah Jireh, My Provider
The provider who drops the dreams into my mind and orchestrates the events that play as my life’s story.
Surrendering my surviving, my fleshly comforts, my clenched fists full of worry
To be “known” by a Jehovah God,
and to trust that His dream for me is going to fit me,
once I’ve stretched large enough to handle it,
all with my confidence in Him.
