Daily Ration

I shared a video a last week about "green pastures" and how that term has been misunderstood for quite some time.  If you didn't get a chance to watch it, take a couple minutes to watch it, here.

What I want to share today is a few instances of this in my life where I know God has been faithful and how that relates to my life today.

A few years ago, my wife and I were living in a growing community where the median household income is well above $75000 a year and we were living on less that $35,000 with two kids. It was a great community and we were both growing a lot, but the cost of living was always something we couldn't quite catch up with. 

We were good at setting down and writing a budget to try and stay on top of our bills and to try and keep from going deep into debt.  When it was all said and done, our income was always about $300 short of what we knew our bills were going to be.  It was hard, but we had learned how to live on less, but without getting yet another job and being gone all the time, it didn't seem possible to keep up with. 

What we learned during that time was how to really trust in God when it came to our finances.  Every month that gap between our income and our bills was closed as I would be allowed to work just enough over time, I would pick up an additional guitar student, or would be able to sell something on craigslist.  Sometimes I had items listed on craigslist for months and then, the day we were going to need the money, it would sell.

God gave us our daily ration.

I share this, because I am again in a similar spot, where I find myself forgetting that God will provide and that He will give us our daily ration.  It is so easy to want to take control and try to "store up" what I think I will need, but today was another day when I had to say "God, I know you have this.  I am thankful for my daily ration." 

I'm not saying our budget is near like it used to be, by I know within the next few months I am going to need to purchase a new vehicle to transport my growing family.  I want to do all that I can now to make sure that I am saving, finding ways to make extra money, and doing my part in being ready, but I feel like God is saying, "trust me, you will have it when you need it." 

Now I am sure some of you who read this might be thinking that God blesses people and gives more than our daily ration.  While that is true, I believe there is a reason for that. 

There have been countless times in my life where people have helped my family out.  The blessing God gave someone else, turned in to my daily ration.  In the same fashion, there have been times in my life when I knew that the blessings God gave me were to be given to someone else to be their daily rations.

I know there are a lot of people in this world with very little and their daily rations seem so much less than ours.  The spectrum is wide.  Some have just enough and some don't even seem to have that.  What if we looked at our blessings as someone else's and realized we were not meant to keep it. 

I'm not going to say having stuff is wrong, but as a musician friend, Kevin Schlereth, once wrote, "All these possessions are not sufficient for a good life.   All these possessions may even keep you from a good life."  Those words are hard to swallow, but grabbing hold of them sure can make it easier to let go of things you desire when we live in a world that tells us you need more stuff.