Dear friend,
I have known God to be the God of abundance. I have seen him lavish kindness and underserved gifts on me. I have seen him step in and provide beautiful, unnecessary gifts. I see his wanton abundance in the almost wasteful beauty of the world we live in. He is the God of the little lunchbox boy, who saw his 5 loaves and 2 fish feed 5000 people, who were crammed so full there were 12 basketfuls they could not finish.
I have known him to be the God of the famine. When there was nothing and it was impossible and somehow, somehow he got me through. When it was not ok, and it was not right, and somehow he held me through the darkness. I have known him beside me through my dying and I have seen him bring me through to life.
But how about the God of just enough?
If I’m honest I don’t think I’m that keen on that idea of him. Is anyone? We like to have stock piles built up, reserves to fall back on. We do not like our shelves to be empty before we refill them... what if there’s not enough? What if we run out?
I’m a planner. I am a planner and I have a planner. I like to know what I’m doing in advance. I like to be prepared and know we’ll be ok because I’ve checked. I’ve got something up my sleeve, something in my back pocket and something for a rainy day.
So what happens when God takes you to a place of just enough.
1 Kings 17: 7-16
7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the Lord came to him: 9 “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” 10 So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, “Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?” 11 As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
12 “As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”
13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”
15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.
When we started the lockdown and I found out I was going to have the children here all the time I had a complete panic. I was at that point needing most of the week to recover from weekends energy-wise, in order to avoid a big chronic-fatiguey crash. Surely God was taking us backwards, back into the place of constantly being overwhelmed and stuck in my bed again? I could not even begin to imagine coping with the family being at home all the time. All the strategies for coping: space and rest and quiet and pacing, gone! All the carefully constructed rhythms, gone! I collapsed in front of God, wondering why on Earth he was sending me back to the place of darkness and death, sending me back to the prison of my shut down body and my bed. But as often seems to be the way, he was doing something new. Sam and I both felt like maybe God was talking about to us about my healing. Oh yes please!! Now we naturally assumed this meant I would be immediately, completely better...
It is interesting that the story of the widow is not that God miraculously filled up her larder and shelves, so that she was visibly well stocked for the entirety of the famine. No. Instead, it just never quite runs out. So every day, the widow looks at her few grains of flour and little bit of oil and says, “Right, one more day, then we die.”
I wonder how many days it took her to stop thinking it was the last day. I wonder how long it took before she trusted there would be enough.
It’s taken me a long time. And its not consistent yet. For the first few weeks, every day I thought to myself, “Well, I might manage today but there will be a total wipe out tomorrow.” But it’s still not arrived. I’ve never quite run out of energy.
Isn’t that a gorgeous, quiet miracle? Like the story of the elves and the shoemaker... when the elves sneak in in the night and make one last pair of shoes with the last bit of leather, and there’s just enough for the next day.
It’s not very comfortable though, because to finish up the last little bit, to scrape the barrel every day, feels like balancing on the edge of starvation. I want to be far away, safe behind walls of stuff I’ve got in reserve. I want to stuff my pockets and my backpack, hold on to as much as I can, just in case. Then I know it will be ok. But the place of just enough is also the place of miracles. We do not need miracles if we have more than enough. To balance on the edge of just enough, day after day, is to dwell inside the miracle.
Weakness makes space for dependence. And dependence leaves space for his provision. When the Israelites were in the desert God was so keen for them to learn dependence on him that their bread (mana that literally appeared from nowhere overnight - so cool, like bread dew) went bad every day.
I am beginning to learn what it means to receive my daily bread. Can I learn to stop wondering if there will be enough for tomorrow?
The reality is of course, that the stuffed backpack and the overfull pockets, the heavy hands, are not dependable. They could be emptied by things beyond our control or outside of our expectations, at any moment. All control is an illusion. Isn’t that what we’re seeing all around us? I came here with nothing and I will leave with nothing. Everything I have is given. How much better to take hold of the giver with two hands, than hold on to reserves that cannot possibly last the night? Better by far to wait for the morning and see his new miracle, his new kindnesses, my daily bread, laid out on the grass.
“Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” Matthew 6:8
I want to learn to live with empty hands, with no back up plan in case he fails me. I want to live the life that’s given, not the life I’ve taken. I want to love the place of the quiet miracle. I’m going to take handfuls of you Jesus. Leave the bread til the morning. All your ways are beautiful.
Katy
Comments