Band-Aids or Blessings? More on Matthew 6:19-34

 Thank you, JD — “Tripping over Cobblestone” (shutupnoway.blogsome.com)

 

I’ll never forget when my daughter was in preschool, and while having a conversation with some other parents during a book/toy fair at her church school, she interrupted by pulling on my sweater and said, loudly, “Mama, can you please buy me this lil boat, or are we still flat broke?”  I melted into the carpet.  Seems Daddy and I had been a little too open over the checkbook at home. 

By the way, Baby Girl got the boat…purely for the sake of show that we weren’t destitute.

I used to be ashamed that we lived on smaller means.  I used to get so miffed when I would pray to God to deliver us out of some new hole that we had fallen in, usually a financial one.  I was mad that, while others seemed to glide through life, that our little family had to continually pull together pennies. Literally, we regularly raided the penny jar and checked each others’ jean pockets in the dirty laundry, laughing when the other would walk in.  We noticed that we began to rely on our once disposable stash of pocket change.  Pennies weren’t so tossably worthless anymore.

But you know what?  It’s not such a bad way to live.  Bear with me while I explain that living a little close to the bone at times is good for us.  Very little of the meat gets wasted, that’s for sure.

 For one thing, in leading a quaint existence, you never forget to say thanks over dinner.  Dinner is a form of security.  It should be a big enough deal to sit down at the table to break that wonderful bread together and to see smiling and, yes, smacking, full faces.  It’s proof of God’s provision on a daily basis. 

Honestly, how many families live tight enough that, to Moms especially, it feels like your birthday when you unload the groceries?  I know a lot of us larger families do, and also the homes with stay-at-home moms.  And what a joy to see your kids run out to the car to look in the bags, and to listen to them almost purring as they hurriedly fill the pantry and exclaim over each item, “You got it!  Thanks, Mom!”  I love when, for example, my son skips around the kitchen with a bag of cereal over his head because it’s the one he wanted.  I would hate to think that they would ever take a full pantry for granted. 

God makes me skip sometimes, too.  It’s when He pulls not everything out of the bag that I wish for, but rather that one item at a time that I search for time to time.   I know that He also has a plan when He makes me wait…and wait…and wait.  Even God knows that we can become jaded with overabundance.  Complacency — I don’t want that.  I’ve been there.  It can seem a poverty in the midst of plenty.

I wasn’t always this way.  There was a time that I wanted us to have it all, but I began to see that having it all wasn’t really living.  I worked full-time, commuting from dawn to dusk.  Dinner wasn’t even started until 6:15 every night, and I lived for the weekends.  I was often stressed and irritable.  We had money enough for whatever, but there wasn’t enough time. 

When I decided to stay home with our four kids, I knew that sacrifices were inevitable.  What I didn’t know was that my kids would ever feel the pinch.  Moreover, now that I finally had the time, the money was more scarce for quality time, outings, and even home improvements.  It was like a toss-up between the worse of two evils — have $/no time or have time/no $.  I understood there would be trade-offs.  Still, I sometimes long for that bigger house instead of this too-close furniture and cluttered corners.  And I’d love the cool car that turns heads on some days.  I still browse the sale ads on Sundays to see what’s out there that I’m missing.

Materialism — it’s something that all Christians grapple with.  We live in a material world and subsist on tangibles.  But the question as it relates to quality of life is, “When is enough actually enough?” 

It took years before I realized that the balance would have to come from my perspective.  What better way to gain that healthy perspective than to realize that the biggest blessings we ended up with — our home (however little), our health, our children, and hubby’s steady job/my single but reliable client — were simply in having our needs met.  It was nothing about wants, the outright luxuries.  The liberation came in realizing that God’s meeting our NEEDS was blessing enough.  The blessings all culminated in being freed from stuff…you know stuff…the things that just make you want more, that insatiable thirst for more, more, more.  It was like we pulled off from Material Station and never looked back. 

I used to crave expensive liqueured chocolate cake.  Now I usually make it at home and listen to that screeching dibs for licking the beaters, and kids’ oversized heads in the way of stirring the batter. I once wore jewelry — lots of it — to feel beautiful and shiny.  Now I have a favorite necklace and Baby A. tells me that my eyes sparkle.  I used to be an avid shopper for the latest clothes in all brands and combinations for my kids, and even felt the need to change mine out from season to season.  But I lost that belief as I realized that kids can indeed wear the same outfit twice in a two-week period, and my clothes still fit the same the next year.  It’s not the end of the world. Those things weren’t needs, and I placed too much emphasis on them, usually just for the sake of keeping up appearances.  With the exception of my books, I quit doing “collections,” “matching patterns,” and “collectibles.”  The extras bogged me down in so many ways.  Just new somethings to get broken, to cause that incomplete feeling if I didn’t purchase the newest addition.  It was a newfound and unexpected freedom to learn to separate needs from desires.

Honestly, our house could burn down tomorrow…and the only things my hands would grab for would be those books and one large tupperware container holding our family photos and videos.  Everything else is just frosting. 

For the first few years, when we would run short, it always felt like God was just putting Band-Aids on our deficiencies instead of actually healing the problem, instead of providing over and above so we could be free from worry…you know, give us extra to store away…so that we could escape the possibility that He might forget to meet our daily needs.  However, the problem was me and my perception of “making it.”  What He was actually doing was teaching me to understand security in Him and the wisdom of Providence, just like the people who wandered in the desert and learned to collect their manna each day.  Manna — this miracle bread from heaven that God caused to descend each day with the dew…the same miracle that the people managed to forget was a miracle.  I don’t ever want to do that.  I want God to make me look up each day for my manna.  And when He rains down more than I need for that day, I want to feel secure enough about tomorrow that I will give away my excess, because I’ll know that He will be there.  

In short, God has taught me to silence my mouth from crying, “More, more!”  What He gives me from day to day is enough.  He changed my definition of “enough.”  He made me see the futility in building up “more.”  He’s my provider from day to day.  He has been there since the beginning of time and will exist forever.  To accept his daily provision and cry for nothing more is to say, “Lord, I know that you’ll be there anytime I need and will never forsake me.”  To cry out for more to store away for myself is to say, “Provide now in case you forget me later.”  God doesn’t forget his own…ever. 

I used to become angry and say to myself, “Why can’t this client just send more work on a regular basis?  God, provide me a steady, reliable income so I can know what to budget.”  That’s when I realized that His love for me was so great that He put a lesson into it.  Who is God to us if we have no true need of Him every day?  Who is He if we can give him a quick jingle, and He responds by fixing everything for us and opens all of heaven to rain down blessing to the point that we might not keep in touch for a while?

The longer that I live, I understand the ”give us this day our daily bread” that Jesus taught.  Just as He counted on God to provide for him and his disciples, and even his crowds at times as the needs arose, in teaching that prayer, He was trying to show us that God wants to be a constant presence that hands us our blessings, into our outstretched and empty hands, from day to day.  With less “stuff,” less treasure stored up here on Earth, there is less of that “mine, ours” hording mentality, and a greater inclination to share because it’s not about what you have earned but what you have been graced with.  This is to give us also that constant reminder of who fills our hands — that it’s our Father and not ourselves.  I know that I much prefer it this way. 

Because I get these providential Band-Aids, temporary fixes, I’m bettered and actually grow to help myself.  I’m thankful that He fixes our supplies just enough so that I’ll keep in touch because I’m dependent on his provision — in itself a blessing — and in constant contact with my Maker.  It’s His way of saying, “I want to be a part of your life everyday, to know that you need Me.” 

The best way to explain it is to ask every adult, “When did you most intensely feel love for your mother or father?”  (Of course, it’s also true of whoever raised you — grandparent, guardian, caring friend.)  The answer is most usually something akin to, “When I was little and helpless, when I needed them the most to provide for me.” 

Booyah!

As for that Band-Aid Effect that used to irk me?  After a while, you realize that there’s no reason to cover yourself all of the time when His mercies are new every morning. 

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~ by Galvanized on February 1, 2007.