God does provide abundantly. I am not quite sure why every now and again I think I do not have enough. I know this has been like a two week conversation. Forgive me. It takes more than a day for me to process imaginary sacrifice. Why did I just call it that? I didn’t plan on calling it that. I guess because in a moment like this as I realize what God has done for me in the last year and a half, it seems absurd to argue I have out given God.
If everything I have is from Him, how can sacrificing be giving it back? Well, I suppose it could be. We do have the freewill to keep it. But if we never sow it into someone else’s life, we will never have the pleasure of reaping a harvest.
After I finished living in sin by worshipping my career and hobby, I came up with what I think is a good analogy of why we should freely give to God. (Actually I may have gotten the analogy from somewhere, but don’t remember where.) For two years, I never asked God to direct these two areas of my life because I was sure I didn’t want to know the answer. In fact, I believe I even verbally expressed to friends that I was afraid if I talked to Him about them, He would take them away. What the real truth is, I knew He would take them away.
I lived with two clenched fist. My career in one hand. My hobby in the other. My career and hobby were like baby birds. I chose to hold them tightly, so no matter what they couldn’t get away. I didn’t want to talk to God about them because that met I would have to open my fists and they might fly away. Baby birds do not do well being squeezed. I squeezed them to death. I should have left them fly away. It would have been so much less painful.
I think most things in God’s kingdom are like that. If we don’t give them the opportunity to fly away, we will just kill any chance we ever had of enjoying them and they will die without ever giving us a harvest.
I am reading through the epistles. I have not made it to 2 Corinthians. I am stuck in the last half of 1 Corinthians rereading and rereading and rereading. I am particularly stuck on chapter 9. Paul’s whole discussion in this chapter gets under my skin. I tried to move past 1 Corinthians this morning and just couldn’t. Okay, God, I will read this one more time!
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. – I Corinthians 3:10-15, NIV
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