Shall Supply!

I had kind of a hard time waking up this morning.  When I finally stumbled into the kitchen, I half-heartedly went through the motions of preparing the coffee maker, turned on the local Christian radio station and headed for the study.  Everything seemed to be fine until the station unexpectantly went off the air.  I fumbled with the radio for a few moments until I convinced myself that it was the station and not my thirty-year-old boombox.  Then I turned to grab the remote for the TV and the home entertainment system.

Ah!  That was better as I poured a hot cup of java while my favorite Southern Gospel satellite channel began to fill the house with familiar tunes.  Maybe this day was going to turn out better than I initially thought!  And with that in mind, I went back into the study and sat behind my computer and my digital Bible Study program as it seemed like my universe was coming back into line.  But then… I exclaimed, as I jumped up in my seat, “Oh my gosh!” as Fiver began to howl!  For some reason, there's a few songs that either bother his ears or… he just simply likes to sing along with!

Have you ever tried to study the Bible when your 70lb dog is sitting behind you on the couch and is howling like a wolf?  Let me tell you… it ain’t easy!  So, I jumped up from my momentary touch of peace, laughed, told him “Okay! Okay! I’ll change the channel” and reluctantly returned to the living room where I switched over to The Message, a contemporary Christian music channel out of New York.  That seemed to pacify the pooch and I was able to get back to my solitude!

When I returned to my desk, I was reminded of one of my all time favorite and most used scriptures found in Philippians 4:19.  My original Ryrie NASB Study Bible (purchased in the early 1980’s… actually the first Bible I ever bought myself!) was on the file cabinet next to me, so I opened to the now yellowed and filled with side-notes, underlined and circled words as-well-as many highlighted sections, with the entire edge of the page taped together… and read aloud:

“And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

I can’t begin to tell you of all the times I’ve read that verse, studied it alone and with my wife and then together along with our kids!  Through times of thick and thin, plenty and lack, we’ve stood on that promise, and time and time again experienced the fruit of it in our lives!  That verse excited me this morning just as much as it has over the years! 

When you begin to look up the original Greek meanings to many of the words, you begin to understand the depth of the reach of that verse for your life.  Phrases like “shall supply” literally meaning that God desires to fill up your every need to the point of abundance, with the idea of cramming full, totally satisfying you and helping you to finish all the things that you set out to do with plenty more left over to put in store, fill that short verse.!  So… as I have learned over the years… we can be blessed in order to be a blessing to others! (Psalm 37:26)

What more can I say?  We serve a God who definitely desires to bless our socks off!  And He wants us to be just like Him.  Lately, I find myself both laughing and crying at the same time when I read Psalm 91:15 in The Passion Translation where the Lord tells us that “I will be your glorious hero and give you a feast.” I get emotional because that’s exactly who I always wanted to be for my lovely wife… and now I find out that I felt that way because I wanted to be just like my heavenly Big Brother… and I can be at peace in knowing that in Piper’s eyes, I just might have been that hero as I cared for her 24/7 for the last eight years of her earthly existence.   

The reality of it is, that without His provision of all of our needs… that I would never had been able to quit my job(s) and fully focus on her needs.  Isn’t God Good!  He blessed me, so that I could be a blessing to her!*

Are you trusting… or maybe I should say “Expecting” in the Lord’s provision for your needs so that you too can in turn be a blessing to those around you?  Are you experiencing His provision and blessing in all the things in which you set your hand to… like in your jobs, in your families, in your personal ministries, and in the lives of those you interact with on a daily basis?  You know… His provision of all your needs has endless possibilities in each of our lives.  That thought makes me want to “SHOUT GLORY!”  How about you?

Have a blessed weekend, expect His best and then pass that best on to others!

 

*I’m not advocating that everyone quit their jobs and just trust in the Lord.  One must have God's Word and His leadings for you personally.  We stepped out in faith with a plan for our unique set of circumstances. I had independent work that I could do while keeping Piper with me, and God opened up the door for us to qualify for certain benefit programs due to the severity of Piper’s physical condition.