Good morning! This morning I am being reminded of a time in my life where God was asking me to do something that I wasn’t sure if I could do. There was a time at my previous church where we were collecting money to support a family in our congregation during a very difficult season. They were friends that we care deeply about and when I was praying about what God wanted us to give, I felt like five hundred dollars was the number.
Now I don’t know about you, but I for one do not just have five hundred beans just waiting to go to someone else. There is always some other place that ‘my’ money needs to go: something around the house needs to be updated or repaired, Josh needs something for baseball, Mer enjoys an occasional caramel macchiato, or we just want to do something fun as a family!
You get the idea, me, me, and me! I think it was my Father-in law that once said something like, “We don’t actually own anything, it all belongs to God and we are just stewards of it.” What a perspective changer that can really alter the way you look at everything you ‘own’.
I was really struggling with what God was asking us to give as a family. At the time, I was slowly saving up money to purchase a MacBook so that I could begin learning how to play the keyboard using different layers and settings that are available by using applications on the computer.
I’m sure you know that electronics are not cheap, especially when they carry a name like Apple – and they never seem to go on sale. Well, we decided (meaning I finally put my desire behind what God wanted) to give the five hundred dollars. I didn’t give grudgingly, it just took me time to get to the place where I would put someone else’s NEED over my WANT.
I was extremely happy knowing that we gave exactly what we felt God calling us to give, even if that meant that it would take me longer to get what I wanted.
Shortly after giving the money in this special offering, there was a rare sale on the computer that I had been keeping my eye on. The sale price on the computer was exactly the same amount – five hundred dollars. I ended up making the purchase and remember driving home talking with Mer about how ridiculously cool God is! Here I was, so concerned about five hundred dollars to purchase something I wanted, when I serve a God who provides what we need and sometimes even what we want!
It wasn’t about the five hundred dollars, the whole situation was about my heart. God didn’t need me to give ‘my’ money to this family, He has everything they could ever need! God was looking for me to surrender my heart to Him and trust Him for the rest!
Sometimes we think that we know better than God – or at least that is what we are saying with our actions when we choose our way over God’s way. Basically, by my hesitancy in giving the financial offering that God was putting on my heart to give, I was contemplating whether or not I could do better with ‘my’ money. How stupid does that sound now that I am writing it down?!
There was a time when King Saul and the Israelites went to war against the Amalekites. In 1 Samuel 15:3, God gives clear instructions – Totally destroy them, do not spare them. In verse 9, we see their disobedience…
“But Saul and the army spared Agag (their King) and the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs—everything that was good.”
1 Samuel 15:9
They SPARED everything that, to them, was good. They even had a great excuse for it – they said they were going to offer the best of the sheep and cattle as a sacrifice to the Lord. But the problem with this is that it was not what God had instructed. God doesn’t need our sacrifice, He wants our heart.
“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”
1 Samuel 15:22
Psalm 50 reminds us that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He didn’t need them to spare anything when the instructions were to totally destroy them. He wanted their obedience and He wants the same from us.
Everything we ‘own’ belongs to God, He has just allowed us to be stewards of it. Let that sink in and change the way that we handle our finances and our assets. We don’t have to worry about how everything will work out, God has everything we could ever need.
Heavenly Father, thank You for the reminder this morning of how You have everything we could ever need! Sometimes we make it things so difficult by holding on to what WE think is best. Help us to always act in obedience to You and trust You for the outcomes! In Jesus Name – AMEN!
Be Transformed 