Trust God with all of it!

For much of my life, one of the areas I had the hardest time trusting God with was my finances. Money.  I want to be generous but I believed, and sometimes still struggle with, being generous when I feel I just don’t have enough. I thought that if I received more money, I would give more money. But the Apostle Paul shows us the opposite using a simple farming illustration.

In 2 Corinthians 9:6, Paul writes, Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

That makes perfect sense.  If I plant more seeds I will yield more produce. So, given that, does it mean that if I give more, I will receive more?

Paul is not saying that when you give financially to God that God is obligated to give back to you financially. Nope, that’s not what it says. And, I think what Paul intimates in this passage is that thinking that way actually is limiting God! Rather, by “sowing” or giving generously we are showing our trust that God is faithful to His word.

Think about a farmer. When the farmer plants that seed the seed is small but they give it generously, and they have faithful expectations that what is in that seed is going to produce something way greater than what they actually planted. The same is true for us. We don’t hold onto the seed, we don’t hold onto our finances, we give to God generously because when we give, we receive far more than the money (or whatever) that we gave to God.

So what do we do with this, especially in the area of our finances?

I think first we need to remember that God’s blessings are not limited to just money, they go so far beyond - peace, joy, strength, encouragement, love, the list goes on and on. God’s blessings are so vast that we can’t even comprehend them but what we must do is trust. Trust God.

I get this is a tough one. Trusting God is hard enough but trusting God with our money? Yikes.  But, I can attest that trusting God with all of it, including the money part is absolutely the way to go.  I could fill pages and pages of personal examples of how this principle is true and that God IS FAITHFUL.

Give of your gifts generously, give of yourself generously, give them freely and joyfully back to the Lord and watch, just watch and see what God will do.  It will blow your mind!  God is faithful in ways you can’t even imagine, because you are not God!

A few verses later, in verse 8, Paul writes:

And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

So today, I encourage you… don’t hold on to what God has given you but rather give generously and joyfully because what God will give back to you is so far greater than what you ever gave to God.

Trust!

Level Ground

After going through a very difficult situation, a well meaning Christian woman looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Well it was God’s will that that happened to you.”

I remember feeling stunned. I was hurting, I felt betrayed and now I hear that this was God’s will?  What kind of God would want me to suffer?

This occurred many years ago and her words have rung in my ears ever since.

How do we know what God’s will is?

I believe that the only way to truly know God’s will is by getting to know God. And we can do that:

• through prayer.

• by searching the scriptures

• listening to the Holy Spirit, and

• seeking confirmation from wise and Godly people

It’s through drawing near to God that God’s guidance and direction becomes evident.

So after doing all of the above, I believe the dear woman had it wrong. It was not God’s will for that situation to occur. It was not God’s will for me to be abused and hurt by another. However, what was true was that God was in the midst to carry me through, to direct me and to put me back on level ground. The adversity forced me to grow and to lean more on God, that was clear but what occurred was not of God.

So what would my response be?  I found myself crying out to God. I needed strength and God’s wisdom to handle this situation. I wanted to do God’s will even though I knew it would be hard. Psalm 143:10 was a powerful verse for me:

Teach me to do your will, because you are my God.  Let your good spirit lead me on level ground.

The Psalmist is praying for God’s divine direction and God’s guidance. I found myself doing the same.   

“You are my God” the Psalmist declares. I love how this expression shows us the intimate relationship the psalmist has with God. A relationship that I too desire.

What would happen in your life if you asked God to guide you, to direct your step, to correct you? I believe that God will do for you what God did for me…that God’s spirit would lead you on level ground.

What's the story of your life?

So, I was heading into a coffee shop recently and I saw a woman, through the glass doors, holding a tray of coffees and a couple of small bags, presumably some yummy treats. There was no way she was going to manage the door so I swiftly opened the door and held it open for her. She thanked me and proceeded through the open door. Just as she made it outside the strap of the purse she was carrying slipped off her shoulder causing her arm to jerk and with that her entire purchase tumbled onto the sidewalk. She looked back at me and said, without skipping a beat, “That’s the story of my life.”

Have you ever heard anyone say that?  Have you?  People usually say that after some mishap.  But when I thought about it, what a terrible way to define ones life story.

The Apostle Paul, in Romans chapter 12, tells us how to tell and articulate a better story of our lives.

2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

This is such a powerful verse. It is gives us a clue to how we might get to the will of God, that I believe we all secretly want.  Paul says it is going to be proved in our lives as we learn to think and speak the actual story of our lives. He says, to have your mind renewed, transformed and revolutionized - think caterpillar becoming butterfly - we have to think differently.  You see it is of this world to see a bad thing happen and say, “that’s the story of my life”. It’s negative thinking, it’s being pulled down to this low level.

The thing is, we can’t live right if we don’t think right. That’s why the bible puts a huge emphasis on how we think. None of us wake up in the morning and say ‘I want to have a bad day’ but at times we allow that kind of negative thought to move us toward the very type of day we don’t want to have.

So today, let’s work on our thoughts being pulled toward heaven. Keep telling yourself the actual story, the Gospel story, that you are loved, you are cherished, you are valued, that you are a child of the king.  That is the story of your life!

You may think, ‘well Mona, that is just half glass full, half glass empty kind of thinking’.  I beg to differ, your glass is not half empty, your glass in not half full, in Jesus’ name your cup is overflowing!