Asking for Abundance

Reading just three short chapters in the book of 2 Kings this morning, one word came into view:

Abundance

First, Elisha, who has been following and learning from the prophet Elijah, receives a DOUBLE PORTION of the Spirit of God when Elijah passes into eternity.

Next, the armies of Israel receive a VALLEY full of water when they and their animals are thirsty.

Then, a widow receives an ENDLESS flow of oil when her pantry is empty.

And finally, a young boy receives a SECOND CHANCE at life after his untimely death.

It seems to me that God has an overflow of provision and goodness for His children, that maybe there is much more available to us than we realize.

We already know from James 1:17 that "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father..."

But what if we moved beyond knowing the source of all goodness and began pursuing the abundance that He holds?

We understand that to follow Christ is to lead a life of humility as He did, and in that, we can easily become content to just accept life as it is.  And while there is great value in contentment - it is a virtue that is not easy to come by - sometimes the line between contentment and complacency can be blurred.

Throughout scripture, we see that God goes above and beyond for His people; He parts the waters, He rains food from heaven, He knocks down city walls, He defeats vast armies, He opens prison doors...He embodies humanity itself, endures temptation, isolation, and rejection, and suffers the consequences of every sin that we would ever commit...

God operates in abundance.

But do we believe it?

James 4:2-3 says, "You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives".

It blows me away that Elisha asked not only to walk in the same incredible power that Elijah already had, but to receive TWICE as much!  Do I have the faith to ask that much of God?  Is my heart so hungry for Him and Him alone that I would receive it?

When the armies of Israel were thirsty, God not only provided them with enough to drink, He filled the entire valley with water - and then He used that gift as a part of His process to defeat their opponent.

In our humility, may we begin to also pursue the limitless ability of our God.  May we not only allow, but invite - ask in confidence for - that which is beyond our limited understanding.  And as we start receiving from His abundance, may we also experience victory within His provision.

"You may ask me for anything in my name."  John 14:14
Isn't it amazing that, as a part of our relationship with Him, Jesus invites us to ask?

Royal Revelations

Last year, I began a plan with a few other ladies to read through the Bible in chronological order, something I've never done before.  While the beginning of the Old Testament was already set in order, once we came to the life of King Solomon, we began to read varying portions of scripture to get the full scope of how he lived and what he wrote.

Many who have heard of King Solomon know that he was an incredibly wise king; possibly one of the wisest to ever live.  He also lived a very rich, successful, and abundant life in many other ways.

Solomon shared snippets of his great wisdom when he wrote the book of Proverbs.  He also wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, reflecting on all that he had learned throughout the life he had lived.  Reading the account of his life as recorded in Kings, together with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, was very insightful for me, and I began to see some things in a new - and more challenging - way.

While I won't go into great detail on the scriptures themselves, when looking over the book of Ecclesiastes, one will find that many of the individual section headings include the word "meaningless".  This fact alone seemed interesting to me, especially coming from someone who walked and talked with God and had the opportunity to experience all of the best things in life.

In Solomon's abundance, he ultimately concluded that what humanity believes is most important - whether on the grand scale or in the smallest of details - actually has no value in the eyes of God.

As we realize in reading Isaiah 55:8, we truly have no way to comprehend the perspective of God; He is just too great.  And God speaks to this reality in Proverbs 3:5, when He asks us not to trust our own limited understanding, but instead to lean on Him for everything.

Solomon learned that humanity shares a common problem; we waste the days of our short time on Earth chasing and prioritizing things that don't really matter.
But the kicker here is that in the midst of it all, we truly believe that what we are pursuing IS valuable.  Jeremiah 17:9 explains that the human heart is deceitful; it is easily misdirected, which is something the enemy of our souls takes pleasure in capitalizing on.  When he is able to slightly get us off track from God's path - the one I talked about in my last post - he successfully gets us on an entirely different path, one where we elevate things, ideas, people, and activities over the true purposes God set within our souls.  THIS is what Solomon saw as he reflected on life and determined that 'everything is meaningless'.

See, King Solomon was not hopeless, as we might presume, when he wrote Ecclesiastes.  He was emphasizing the facts he had learned as he reflected on all of the details of life.  Elsewhere in the books of Kings, in the accounts of those who came after Solomon, God explains that the successive failures of leader after leader were the result of their "worthless idols", which is something Solomon realized was true in every one of our lives.  Where we fail, where we get off course, is in giving weight to SO MANY 'worthless' things; things that may SEEM good or positive, but ultimately are not what God created us for.

As my recent studies have revealed to me, when we spend our days chasing what we believe is valuable without leaning hard into the understanding of our Creator, we get off track.  And like those who have gone before us, we end up rejecting wisdom, fighting against those who love us, and creating a counterfeit believe system that SEEMS like faith but is ultimately leading us to a false sense of our own goodness, moving us further away from God.

So, if 'everything is meaningless', what can we do?

Surrender

The reason our connection with God is designed to be a relationship is because following Him happens in the daily.  We do not have the capability to understand all that He knows and sees, so it is imperative that we establish an ongoing surrender of all that APPEARS to be good and right and valuable to us Every.Single.Day.

When we give over our ideas, desires, interests, and perspectives to be examined by the One who loves us most, we get the opportunity to reset ourselves within His best plans and spend our lives pursuing what DOES actually matter most.

And the more we practice a life of surrender, the more we will discover, as Solomon did, that what ultimately matters most, what satisfies and fulfills every longing and desire within us...is God.