Friday, November 21, 2014

Take Only What You Need

16 This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’” Exodus 16

Take as much as you need, meaning, take only what you need.  God blesses us abundantly, but it is up to us to show restraint and to take for ourselves only what we need.  

Let's start with the easy one that probably already popped into your head: Money.  God is really the one who is providing this blessing for us.  In fact, God is giving you more than you need.  So what do you do with that amount above and beyond what you need?  You give it back to God.  My husband and I have always "kinda" budgeted.  We paid attention to what we spent our money on, and we made sure to not go overboard with our purchases and we always did ok there.  However, starting this summer, we really felt called to tithe.  I'm talking, the full 10% tithe.  This would be a huge change to our monthly finances.  Not to mention, we also started daycare for our son at the same time, so there's another big expense that we weren't used to.

Has it been tough, yes.  But we've gotten through it.  We've found that we really do have what we need and that God is taking care of us.  We pay a bit more attention (and now have an actual budget that we're still working on sticking to), but we always know that that amount that goes for tithing must go there.  It's a non-negotiable matter between us.  And we're still finding a way to get everything taken care of (including daycare).

What else does God bless us with?  The next thing I thought of was Time.  We are given 24 hours in a day, which is again, more than we really need to do everything, even though it sometimes doesn't feel like it.  This is something that I had big struggles with until a few years ago.  I was a huge time waster.  I'd waste it on pointless things.  Did I take any time out to pray, study the Bible or go to church?  No.  And yet, I always complained about not having enough time in my day to get everything done.  I really didn't need to spend hours playing games, or hours transcribing recipes, or hours doing whatever wasteful thing I could think of.

So when my husband and I returned to church and began regularly attending, it hit me about how much time I had been wasting, when I should use that extra time for God.  So I prayed more, and used the time to study the bible.  And of course, I was going to church.  Again, the important things still got done and I had time to sleep at night still.

What else does God bless us with that we can start to use only what we need, and give the rest back to God?  And more importantly, have you been giving your blessings back to God?

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