Psalm 50:10, Matthew 6:25-33 on BLESSED
I added a new scribble to my bible today. As of about three minutes ago. However this wasn't just some random Googled bible verse to throw in for the sake of it (although admittedly I had to google it just to find out where in the bible it was!). No, this verse has been on my heart for a while now:
"For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills." - Psalm 50:10
Lately, every time I've started considering the problems piling up like mountains in front of me, this verse just springs into my head. I cannot for the life of me explain why, given the fact that I hadn't even underlined it till today means it can't have had that much impact the first time I read it. But in the last couple of months, these few words have given me SO much hope and peace.
See, I've had this financial problem.
Without going into details, because that will just take up to much time, I'll just say that I haven't had ANY money for the last month and a half. I've been living of my savings, scraping away at the reserves of what I'd earned on my summer job. Which doesn't sound to bad, but when you have to pay for rent, power and all the other various costs of flatting as well it means it can be really hard to get by. And while I'm good at saving, there comes a point when you can't because you simply don't have anything to save!
Every day for weeks and weeks, I would check my email to see if I had a message about my student allowance. I can't even remember the amount of times I went in to ask if it had been processed yet.
Needless to say, living off a shoestring was starting to get to me.
So I did the logical, Christian thing, and prayed about it. Obviously, because we all know it's the answer to all our problems. Just a quick "Please-and-thankyou God" sent up to heaven, and what do you know? The very next day my student allowance was approved!What do you know?
Except it didn't quite work out like that. Days would go by, weeks, and nothing would happen. Um excuse me God, what's the deal here? is all that I was thinking. What happened to "ask and ye shall receive"? To my shame, I even tried praying more "genuinely" about it, thinking maybe God would hear me if I "meant" it. Good idea, completely wrong reasons.
The fear was the worst bit. Fear that it would never come, and that I'd be flat broke, and have to resort to moving out of Palmy, taking out another loan or asking my parents for money: three things I really didn't want to do. I'll confess at times I got a little bit angry about it. Why does this have to happen to me God? And while I was wrestling with all this doubt and the burden of it all, two verses kept repeating themselves around my brain. The first was Psalm 50:10, the second is one of those passages I've held to for a long time, from Matthew 6. It's a little long, so I've only got the first and last verses highlighted in my bible.
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." - Matthew 6:25-33
It's incredible to look back on this and see that in both these verses, I got my answer. Yet I pressed on, relentless in my stupidity. I wanted more, an answer that was consistent, relief from it all and
I wanted it NOW.
About four days ago, it all came to a head. I checked my bank account, and realized I had enough money to pay two more weeks of rent and then I was flat broke. So I called it. Fully genuinely this time, not pretending, I cried out to God for the first and the last time. I was tired of waiting, tired of asking yet not receiving, but most of all tired of not seeing God in all this. I can't remember the exact words but it was something along these lines. "Lord, I'm sick of all this. Sick of worrying about something I'm not ever going to be able to control. Maybe it's not your plan for me then, to be here right now. If not, then let this happen. Let me be flat broke, let my life go somewhere else. I don't even care anymore, I just want it to be your will, not mine." As soon as I had finished pouring my heart out, God spoke and simply reminded me that I already had been given the answer. BAM! and those two verses where in my head again. "Do not worry about your life...." , for "[I own]...the cattle on a thousand hills.". I was stunned. All this time, the still, small voice had been speaking to me while I had been waiting for a whirlwind. I went to bed that night so full of peace and content about it all, and had the best sleep since the start of it all.
Now this is the cool part: the very next day my allowance was approved.
...
Before you start getting ideas, I'll make this clear. This isn't just a nice little story about how God answers prayer (even though that is a part of it). Rather I want to use these two verses and my personal story to share what I learned from it.
Because from that night I finally realized WHY I had been waiting so long. God was using this experience to teach me a few things, and I almost missed them.
First of all, thanks to his incredible grace he didn't give me what I wanted, at least not immediately. I'm so thankful for this, because if he hadn't extended the time period it took for the allowance to come through, I would have missed so many of the things which he was trying to teach me! It just took me so long to get it! This in itself is such an important lesson. God's timing is spot-on. Sometimes things take a lot longer than expected because he knows if you get them immediately, or when YOU want them, it won't teach you anything.
Secondly the Lord really was trying to teach me something big about head and heart attitudes. As soon as I got it, I was so regretful of what my previous approaches to prayer had been. Totally selfish, hypocritical and pathetic whingings - and that's so not what prayers supposed to be! Yet so often I approach it like that, like a shopping list of things God has to give me. But it's not like this, and if I had taken the time to properly search Psalm 50 and read the whole lot, I would've got this. Because it's all about giving and getting. God doesn't need to give us anything. He doesn't need us to offer to make sacrifices of our time or money to him like bargaining chips so we get what we want. It doesn't work like that. He's more concerned about where our hearts are at, while we're still all about the giving and the getting.
Finally, I see the bigger picture, and that the last lesson God was teaching me in this time is potentially the most important. We are so, so, SO blessed! On the night when I cried out to God about MY problems, and MY concerns, as soon as I got these two verses in my head I was just overwhelmed at all the blessings I did have. Immediately I almost felt ashamed for asking for more. I live in a first world country. I have a cellphone, three guitars and a laptop. In my entire life I have never known true need. And yet I had the audacity to ask for something, knowing full well that even if it did not come I would still be provided for in some way! God blesses us in so many ways which we ungratefully just accept as "life" or "stuff" with the knowledge that we have so much more than so many. It just blows my mind to know that on top of that, he blesses us above and beyond that! My allowance got approved, and that didn't need to happen. Yet he gave it to me, because he is a good God, and he loves giving gifts to his children. BUT there's a pretty big call to all this. We're not blessed just for the sake of it, even though all we have we do not deserve. Matthew 6:33 puts it really clearly: "Your heavenly Father knows you need all these things. But seek FIRST the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
Man, that is both such an incredible promise to cling to, and such a difficult challenge to live up to. Yet I believe we are called to do both. So take no thought for what you will eat, or wear, or get but rather for what you will DO.
1 comment:
yes, yes, yes!
He knows, and yet He still loves us.
and patiently waits till we figure it out. and keeps on loving us. Gracious and merciful God!
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