It seems that almost everyone is concerned about the economy these days. I can relate. From the world’s perspective I am personally in a more “precarious” financial position than I have ever been in–which is saying something since I have been through some pretty lean times! Yet for the most part (most of the time anyway) God has kept my heart and mind in His perfect peace. I need to keep reminding myself that God doesn’t do “recession”. There is no lack in His Kingdom–ever.
This past weekend, the Lord underscored this fact to me. As I walked into church on Sunday, one of our more “prophetic” guys walked up to me and said that as soon as I walked in the door, he heard the Lord say “a new room.” He prayed for me, but the Lord didn’t really give him much more detail. Yet as he was praying for me, the phrase “heaven’s storeroom” came into my mind so I began chatting with the Lord about this. I wasn’t sure that His ”storeroom” could be the “new” room” since I had surely recieved from this room on many occasions. Yet as we were worshiping that morning I felt like the Lord did indeed bring me into His storeroom. He told me I had received from this room but that I had not actually entered it before. I did that day.
There is a LOT I could write about what I saw in that room, but I’ll save most of it for another time. I feel like it is indeed a new room the Lord has invited me into, and one I look forward to exploring in greater depth in the days to come. But there is one thing that immediately jumped out at me as I entered this room that I do want to share in this post.
When I walked into the door of this enormous and seemingly endless room, there was a small bookcase type structure to the right of the door. When I looked at it, I realized that the bottom shelf of this one little bookcase contained all the material and financial resources I would ever need in my lifetime! Not only that, I had the distinct impression that there was enough contained on that one tiny little shelf of that one tiny little bookcase to provide for all the financial needs of the entire world. When I looked at that little shelf and then looked at the vast expanse of the room–needless to say, I got a jolt of perspective.
It is not a big deal for God to provide for our material needs and He is most certainly not the least bit “stressed” about the economy. Even more, He knows that what the world calls “riches” are wholly insignificant compared to vast and eternal treasures of heaven that are available to those who simply believe and “seek first the kingdom of God.” It was also very telling that the shelf was readily avialable (right by the door) and easy to reach (everything was on the bottom shelf). It seemed to me that when we keep our material needs in perspective, we won’t need to stress or strive to have those needs met. After all, “Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? “ The answer of course is: Yes, you are! So valuable in fact, that you were worth the precious blood of God’s own Son. And if God didn’t withhold His very best, how could He possibly fail to meet our most basic needs?
“But Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt.6:33).
To me, the question isn’t how do we access heaven’s provision because I think the Lord has already clearly provided us with the answer to that question. The only question I do have is this: What does it really look like to “seek first His kingdom?” That’s what I want to spend my energy learning–and not in fretting about how to make ends meet.
I think I’m going to enjoy exploring this “new” room!