You’ve worked hard, studied hard and learned everything you need to know to perform the tasks at hand.  But now you’re told to wait.  You keep hearing that it won’t be long, but the waiting continues.  You said you’d give your life for the opportunity that’s before you, but one day you get tired of waiting and decide to do something else.  It’s not that you’ve forgotten all you’ve learned, but in your frustration of waiting you’ve lost your edge.  You’re no longer prepared for the opportunity before you.  But given enough time, you can catch up and be ready.

         Staying prepared is one of the most difficult things in life to do in the midst of the most frustrating thing to do in life which is waiting.  The notion of waiting troubles many of us because we’d really like to get on with our lives.  And in some ways, waiting for us is like being a runner at the starting line, hearing the starting judge say, “Ready — Set — “ but never hearing that person say go.  In a race, runners are at their most alert while waiting to hear “Go”.  We become irritated when we’re told to wait a certain period of time.  But when that time passes and we still find ourselves waiting without any resolution to our waiting, our anger, frustration and impatience take over.  It works against our every instinct to be content.  And the idea of waiting becomes even more problematic and especially troubling when there is no time stamp on how long our wait will be.

         Not knowing when the bridegroom is coming makes waiting, patience, and being ready a delicate matter.  Our tendency — if asked to wait too long — is to relax.  We may even find some distraction to interfere with our readiness. One person has said, “If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready!”  As faithful stewards of Christ, our responsibility is to stay ready — to have the lamps of our faith trimmed with the oil of good works so that we’re always prepared for the coming of the Lord.

• What gives you confidence that you’re ready should the Lord return today?
• What do you do to ensure that you always have enough oil to carry you through your time of waiting?
• How difficult has waiting for Christ to return been for you?

Todays Prayer

Loving God, help me in all ways to stay ready while waiting for Your return. Give me the patience to endure this time of waiting keeping me faithful with enough oil in my lamp of faith to light my way through the darkness of life.

         We live in a culture that often idolizes money and possessions.  Things plated in gold and the possession of optional financial currency (bitcoin) have taken over in some ways.  Lottery jackpots stir excitement, and desire for wealth can fuel the desire for still more.  If we’re honest, money has become a god for many around the world. The question is, “Which God do we serve?”

         Many of us profess to serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, yet conversations about money and giving in church remain difficult.  Our giving reveals not only whom we serve but our role as faithful servants of God.  The question is: “Does our giving shape our lifestyle, or does our lifestyle determine our giving?”  We readily make long-term commitments to homes, cars, and cellular devices and service contracts, but often hesitate to make comparable commitments to God through the church. These choices reveal our loyalties more than we’re willing to admit.  We all have lesser gods competing for our devotion, and what we prize may be detestable in God’s sight.  As we remember that we can’t out-give God, let us also remember that our faithfulness to God as stewards has eternal benefits.

• Since God has provided all that we have, how do we grow in our faith to believe that God will supply even more according to his riches in glory?
• How can we be assured that as faithful servants of Christ, our generosity reflects our trust in God to provide for us?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, help me to readjust my lifestyle so that my giving reflects a life that affirms that I am a faithful steward and that You are truly the only God and Master of my life.

         We often see giving as loss.  There are no two ways about it.  When we end up with less than we had in the beginning, 2+2 just doesn’t equal 4.  It becomes more like 2+2 equals 1.  That neither feels good to us nor makes us joyful about our giving.  But what would be the difference in our emotional and spiritual experience if in our giving 2+2 equaled 6, 8, and 12 or more.

         We’re often challenged to believe God’s word on a level of trust that frequently lands far outside our frame of reference.  Were we to truly trust that we would receive in return more than we gave, we would be generous — not to a fault — but to an overwhelming blessing.  We might even be tempted to trust the words of the prophet Malachi, taking up God’s challenge to

       10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be

       food in my house.  Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty,

       “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and

        pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough

        to store it. (Malachi 8:10)

But to trust God in that way would say that we truly trusted God to deliver on what God promised.  And we’re not often invited to test God on anything else but matters of faith — which is exactly what our generosity represents — a matter of faith.

         On the other hand, if we are to truly trust in God, then God’s promise is that God will ‘out-give’ us every single time.  God will convert our hollow offering into something that is dense and packed, returning much more than we need or can hold.  Does that sound like a God who would allow those who trust in Him to run out of God’s blessings to them?  No!  It only highlights the truth that we can’t beat God’s giving, no matter how we try.

• If you’ve trusted God in your generosity, what has been your experience as an outcome of that trust?
• If you’ve not trusted God with your generosity, what do you believe you’ve missed as a result of your lack of trust?
• What needs to happen to move you to the place where you fully trust God in your generosity?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, teach me to trust in Your promise to deliver on your promises to oversupply any and everything I give to honor You. Help me to realize the gift of giving as a supreme blessing of Your grace.