Originally posted last May…now edited and shared again because it’s on my heart again…and it’s Thursday. So, I’m doing it.
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He never knows what to get me. I can just picture Mark walking around the Beijing market, vendors calling out to the Meiguo ren showing him their pearls and silk. He sent me an email while I slept one night with the subject line “Found you an awesome prize” and these words: “Really cool and very excited about it! Hope you like it.”
He had ventured a little off the beaten path to an open market where digging for treasure is required. As he dug, he found an old heavy bowl made to look like a basket with characters on each side. It was made to hold grain and sit in the center of your table with the message translated: Every year, we have just enough.
It’s been sitting in our dining room since his trip to China last May, gently reminding my sometimes wayward heart. When he left his full-time career in the finance industry in October last year, our world dramatically changed. He called, we tested it to be sure, He confirmed, we responded with a yes, knowing that there was no place we’d rather be than walking in His will for us even if that meant releasing it all and depending entirely on Him for provision. And, what a paradox that is—feeling utterly weak and dependent and needy while at the very same time feeling utterly safe and certain and sure that every year, we will have just enough. Some days, the joy in that dependence and His provision is overwhelming; other days, it’s a battle to remember what I was so comfortable with only hours before.
We’ve fought a few of those battles lately, days of looking back and forth at the bowl before us and saying, “Really? Really, God?” Just like a good father, He smiled and answered our {sort of} rhetorical question and let us see it first hand.
I’m leading a team 3 weeks from today to an orphanage in Shaanxi. This summer, another team went to a different orphanage in the same area in China, and a young girl named April had committed to being a part of that team.
When God nudged her spirit to go, she responded, not letting her physical limitations due to cerebral palsy get in the way of her walking with power in His will for her. But, I learned that she was over $1000 short of the funds she needed to go, and those funds were needed that day.
Really? Really, God? Would you call and then not provide? Did she not hear you right?
I hesitated for a few seconds, that wayward heart wondering if God’s provision may have a limit. What could I do? We’re raising money too; in fact, we’re totally dependent on the giving of others and struggling to meet budget at that. If I tried to rally people to come alongside, would I be taking grain out of our own bowl to fill another, leaving ours in need of filling? But, what good is trusting God to give us our portion if we then stand guard around it, essentially believing that He may fill it once but that there must be a limit?
I shared her need, and people responded by giving and sharing. Trusting Him to supply a need that can only be filled by His hand is contagious. By that night, several hours after I first heard of her need, several hours after April had resigned that she would not be going to China after all, she was completely funded. Every last dollar. Paid in full. Just like Paul reported how the churches of Macedonia had responded to the needs they were made aware of, people gave according to their means and beyond their means, earnestly asking for the pleasure of taking part in meeting April’s needs so she could go (2 Cor 8:3-4).
My bowl from that market sits before me, forged by hands belonging to someone who likely does not love the author of the message it reads and brought home to me by a husband who knew the truth I need to see day in and day out.
Every year, every day, every moment, He gives us just what we need. And, not only does He meet us at our very point of need and supply it, but He takes great pleasure in doing it. There is no reluctance or hesitation, only a desire to bless us for His glory and our good, a desire with no limit that overflows and pours out into eternity.
My heart is overwhelmed as I consider so many have given according to their means and beyond their means, how they have “begged earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of our needs so that we could do what God has called us to do.” Our bowl has had a steady supply of manna this year. As we complete our first year in this gig in a couple weeks, we are finding ourselves looking at that bowl more often, asking again if He will fill it. To be honest, the current financial situation doesn’t look promising. We have about 55% of the monthly financial support we need.
Really? Really, God? Would you call and then not provide? Did we not hear you right?
But, we did hear Him. And, He’s still calling. In fact, we’re more convinced now than ever before that we’re doing what He wants us to do. And, while it is scary and hard, we are trusting that He will continue to supply even when we don’t see how that is going to happen.
