And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. - Philippians 4:19-20
My dad has some great one-liners - not the funny kind, but the kind that break truth down into a super simple, easy to work with format. Here's one for you: It's only money. Though it sounds flippant, and like something that would only be tossed around by someone for whom money is no obstacle, it is not actually intended to be said in a flippant way.
Although, I suppose, it is only one to be used by someone for whom money is no obstacle.
One of many things that God has been diligent to show us over the course of many years is that for him, money is no obstacle. Matt and I have come to view money as a very fluid variable when you step back and look at the big picture. For us, being self-employed was (and still is!) a great way to get an accelerated course in this concept. There's nothing like living without a regular paycheck to help you see up close that 1) we work and 2) God provides for us. They are themes that are related, but they run on two separate (though perhaps parallel) tracks. It is not our efforts at our work that provide what our family needs. It is not our place to sit back like lazy bums and expect God to make the money magically appear while we get to do our own thing.
Our job is to do the work before us; His is to provide us with everything we need to do the work.
When we've got this straight in our heads, it provides the freedom to live as a "low-income" (by government standards) family for whom money is no obstacle.
I've been meaning to write some version of this post for months, and have been collecting in draft form a list of many of the ways that we've seen God providing what we need.
In January, leading up to leaving for our trip to bring the girls home, we received a gift of $1000 from a couple we'd met only once. Wow. They sent along a very nice letter and a few photos of their family.
The week after, we got another check for the same amount from the same family, and a short note saying, "If I do not give the full amount God told me to give, I am being disobedient."
That was closely followed by a cash gift in the same amount from local friends of ours.
Three identical, very generous gifts within a very short time span. What a signal to stop and pay attention. (God is so good to us like that! He knows that Matt and I are kind of slow in the head sometimes so he takes pains to be extremely obvious when there's something he wants us to know!) The girls' adoption has been like that all along - copious provision, a truly bountiful experience so unlike most of the adoptions that I follow (including Krassimir's adoption) where God provides, yes absolutely, but not usually much ahead of time!
So here's a sobering thought - money is not the only thing we need to do the work God has given us. Our mental and physical resources have been much more thin this time around. Since the girls came home we have been pushed and stretched to a degree that we both know is not sustainable long-term. In the months of ample provision leading up to the girls' home coming, I kept thinking in the back of my head, is God making a point with this abundance? We have learned to trust him in financial provision - is he so strongly reaffirming his abilities in that arena so we have a firm base to walk forward on in new areas of trust? As I find my body reacting to the stress of constant demands on my time and energy, I will hit points (like this morning!) where I am visibly trembling. The fight for faith now is not that God will provide the monetary resources, but that,
He knows our frame [ie, how we are formed],
he remembers that we are dust. - Psalm 103:14
and that that means he will bring the relief that we need when we need it.~~~
The beauty of being amply supplied financially means that we are also freed to give freely ourselves. All in one week, we were able to send a gift for a mission trip, and received a check in the mail from someone else I've never met in person. We were able to give financial support toward a multi-week summer mission trip to the young lady who helped our family during the first week that I was in the hospital with Mira in January. We were able to give Adam's family a boost toward their new daughter. [Who, by the way, is home now!!! But, imagine this - he hasn't had time to blog about it yet...Think maybe they're a little busy?? As I said, I've been working on this post in some form for months, and the only reason I'm working on it again today is that I'm taking a mini spa vacation (also known as sitting in a quiet pre-op room with a heated blanket wrapped around me while I wait for Mira's post-op nurses to come and bring me to her recovery room!)]
And the cycle continues - a friend from our parents' church emailed me asking if we'd like some nice grass-fed beef? She was passing through the Cities, and had some to share. A business client asked if we could use any clothes for our girls. An answer of, "Yes," resulted in a steady stream for a few weeks of a few bins at a time of incredibly beautiful, many brand new, high quality girls clothes. Oh, what fun for Leah, Rinnah, and Evania to look through, and we were able to select our favorites to fill up the sizes of everything we'll need for years for the girls - a few years ahead of Leah's age, and some very nice things to round out all of the other sizes (because with as many little girls as we have around here, the hand me downs don't always make it through everyone!)
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| Pretty dress coats! |
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| Pretty hair binders! |
~~~
We've been steadily saving for the bathroom project, putting money away as we can, waiting and waiting and waiting, first of all, for Matt to have the time to even think about finishing up the drawings that we have at a solidly schematic stage, but nowhere near what we need for permits or bids. Last month someone we are close to mentioned needing a short term loan of a sizable amount of money to be able to make it to a refinance closing date. "Coincidentally" the amount needed was just about exactly what we had saved up in our savings account, plus the current flex we had in our day to day checking account. God's provision for us has freed us to ease the load for this family. We don't have a set date for repayment, but know that God knows how all of that will shake out.
He knows what we need.
The end of last week brought more - a large check from someone who had given generously during the past year bringing the girls home, and an insurance reimbursement check. It's the days that those both come in the mail on the same day that we take notice. (As I mentioned above, He is sensitive to the fact that we might be a little bit dense, so makes sure it's obvious!) God is again saying, "I've got this. You don't need to worry, because I've got the whole course worked out so that you will have what you need when you need it." So the next week when we got hit with the cost of not one, but two adoption post-placement reports, we knew we'd already been given what we needed to pay for it.
But as I mentioned above, money isn't the only part of the "everything" that he promises to supply. "Everything" means the financial, spiritual, mental, emotional, just plain old hours in the day kind of resources necessary to get the work done.
And that's the point at which some deeper theology comes into play.
One:
This is important. I am NOT an indispensable part of what God is doing in the world. I am what my family growing up would have labeled an "expendable" back in the days when we would watch episodes of the original Star Trek while eating pizza every Friday night. God's mission, God's work, His plan and purpose continues whether or not Andrea has anything to do with it. However, much different from the poor expendables who invariably got left on the alien planet, or dragged off in the alien spaceship, or died from some bizarre alien disease that Bones just couldn't figure out, I am both expendable AND a dearly beloved, precious daughter of the King of kings. I am expendable to the work, but not to the heart of the King.
This means that I am truly set free to live out Philippians 4:6 - Do not worry about anything. I am free to work heartily...[at] whatever I do...as for the Lord... (from Colossians 3:23) without worrying about not doing good enough - I just have to work at it with all my heart...and all my soul and all my mind and all my strength, but the burden of the results is not up to me.
Two:
What I think I need might be different from what I really need. I believe understanding this is critical to believing the truth that is laid out in God's word. In Philippians 4:19, Paul states confidently that God will supply all of our needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. So if we don't have something that we think we need, we're faced with a few options: one, we can believe that God didn't really mean what he said, or two, we can believe that God had good intentions, but his riches really just aren't quite adequate for what we're facing at the moment, or three (and I'll give you a hint: this is the one we know to be true), we can choose to understand that we don't really need whatever it was we thought we needed. Matt and I try to be very careful in our family as we go through our daily life to make clear distinctions between the two - is that thing you need really something you need, or is it just something you want?
This plays itself out in a variety of ways, including some rather extreme potential scenarios. The question really comes down to not just, "What do we need?" but, "What do we need for what?" Does God promise to give us everything we need for a life that is easy and comfortable? I think that's pretty easy to rule out on many counts. First of all, generally, I don't see any evidence in the Bible that God's goal for us is a life of comfortable ease. Comfort? Yes - in the sense that Paul writes about in the first chapter of 2 Corinthians, but even in Philippians a few sentences before he shares about God meeting all of our needs, he writes about the secret of contentment in times of plenty and abundance, and times of hunger and ...need! So I think it's obvious that a life of comfortable living is not what God promises. So let's take it further. What DO we really need? Food? Air? Clothing? Sleep???
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. (Matthew 6:31-32)
He knows that we need them...to stay healthy, to stay alive. But I often step back and have to ask, is staying alive really the be all and end all of why we exist? I would have to argue that no, it is not. Is life valuable? Yes, yes, emphatically yes. Is it to be valued over everything else and at all expenses? NO.
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)
I think it's valuable to look back at where this post started if we're going to correctly answer the question of "What do we need for what?"
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen. - Philippians 4:19-20
See that second half? That is the answer to the "for what?" question. He has promised to give us everything we need to bring him glory, and if we're going to do that through life, we'll have everything we need to keep this body alive. If we're going to do that through death, we'll have everything we need to ensure that happens, too. He will give us everything we need!
So on to...
Three:
Being confident in him supplying everything I need means I need to be absolutely confident that God is completely in control of everything. My dad's not the only one to coin the phrases we hear from him. Here's one that came from a man from his church: If it happens, its okay. I love this one because on the surface, it, too, sounds incredibly flippant, but in reality, it's anything but that. It originates from an absolute conviction that God is who he says he is (...him who works all things according to the counsel of his will...Eph 1:11) - the one who is absolutely in control of everything that happens, and knowing that, coupled with what he promises in Romans, (about working all things out for the good of those who love him), is intensely powerful and intensely freeing, and is a belief that can take both the smallest and the biggest challenges and victories of life (and everything in between) and equips us to turn them back to praise to him. And it has a useful inverse as well: if it doesn't happen, that's okay, too. Because God's got it all working out the way he wants it to, and I know that way is for my good and for his glory, no matter how hard it is.
That's what we are continually reminding ourselves. The time that I take to write some of these posts is as much a matter of me needing to put it all together in front of me in one place as it is for anything else. There are so many things we think we need. The bathroom and ramp, for one! A little bit more sleep! Or maybe a week to just get this house organized. We *think* we need these things now. But we don't need it now. When, and if, we need it, we will have it. And if we get it, it might not even then be because we need it, but it might simply be the overflow of being the beloved child of the King who is not bound to give us luxuries in this life, but is entirely able to choose to do so when he so pleases, and to give us a chance to learn the secret of being content in all circumstances.
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