Trusting God

Psalm 104:27-28 All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.

‘Things’ have been the source of much thought, talk and frustration in the lives of many I know lately, including myself. We load our lives with too many ‘things’. The scripture above talks about God’s provisions. I think somewhere along the way humankind has gotten off the path of trusting God for provisions so we squirrel away things just to make sure we have enough …whatever that means. I think ‘enough’ has a lot to do with that ‘need vs. wants’ issue, too.

I ran across an article Max Lucado wrote titled Trust Him – Not Stuff. I used the scripture above. This is what Max had to say:

If there were no God—“stuff” trusting would be the appropriate response to an uncertain future.  But there IS a God!

And God does not want us to trust money.  Jesus said, “Do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, or have an anxious mind.” 

Scrooge didn’t create the world.  God did!

Psalm 104 celebrates this lavish creation with 23-verses of itemized blessings; the heavens and the earth, the waters and streams and trees and birds and goats, and wine and oil and bread, and people and lions.  God is the source of living things both small and great!

God is the great giver.  The great provider.  The fount of every blessing.

Absolutely generous and utterly dependable.

The resounding and recurring message of Scripture is clear: 

God owns it all. God shares it all. Trust Him—not “stuff!”

We all know to trust God, we all say we trust God and yet we accumulate and put away more stuff than is reasonable and sane. You have no idea the battle I waged with myself yesterday over some curtains I purchased 20 years ago and have had stashed away. The Practical Me wanted to add them the growing mountain of things to donate. The Emotional Me wanted to keep them because I love them, they were expensive, I might wish I had them one day. Let me just say I have had these stored away for 18 of the 20 years. For 18 years I have moved and stored these silly things just in case I have the perfect room to use them again. Gee whiz! No one has seen them much less enjoyed them, not even me.

I have two hands, most of us do. Yet, I have seven spatulas (egg turners). Seven! The most I could use at one time would be two. Yet I am hard pressed to get rid of any and could make an argument for keeping the seven. If I trust God to provide my food why is it I can’t trust enough to believe it will get turned over without hoarding seven spatulas?! This, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg. I bet you can look around your house and find a treasure trove of ‘stuff’ you have held on to as well. My cousin recently told me that she calculated the amount of money her father spent on commercial storage buildings over the years to house pure junk and it came to a whopping $65K. Boggles the mind, doesn’t it? 

Where is our trust, faith and belief that God will provide all we need? It’s not in the attic, or the garage, or the storage building. Something to ponder.