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“God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world-what is viewed as nothing-to bring to nothing what is viewed as something.” I Corinthians 1:28
On our way home from Europe, the captain came on the intercom, “Attention passengers, you will find an envelope behind the seat in front of you. We are collecting money to provide clean water for those who have none.” I disregarded the announcement because all I had in my bag was a few coins leftover from my trip.
After a couple of movies and a nap we were nearing home, and once again the pilot came over the speaker encouraging passengers to contribute to the cause. This time around the story of the boy with the small lunch came to mind. He did not look at what he had in his hand and think, “this will be plenty to meet the need.” It was a small sized lunch for a small boy, and the crowd was vast. Instead of discounting his offering and keeping it for himself, he offered it to Jesus. Suddenly aware that my hands held a small offering, I filled the envelope with every spare coin I had in my bag. I was tempted to disregard the offering I held in my hand because it seemed insignificant.
In 2 Kings 4, a recently widowed woman was about to lose her two children to slavery and she could not pay her bills. She looked at her circumstances and saw no way out. Her resources appeared depleted. Elisha asked the desperate woman what she had, and at first glance it appeared she had nothing of value. Elisha told her to look again. With searching eyes, she replied, “I have nothing except this jar of oil.”
Nothing, except.
When she looked at what she had, at first glance she saw nothing of value. Her husband was dead, she could not pay her bills, she was about to lose her boys, and all she saw when she looked harder was a meager jar of oil. Her boys were instructed to go to the neighbors and bring back all the empty jars they could. Her single bottle of oil was poured out and empty vessel after empty vessel was filled. The scant amount of oil was used to fill up jar after jar. This weak situation was infused with the provision of God. She lacked nothing.
Today’s temptation will be to look at the need around us, compare it to our resources, and wrongly declare we do not have enough to meet the need at hand. Look again. Look again and remember, God chooses differently than we do. He names differently than we do.
Where have we wrongly named our resources today? Lord, give us eyes to look again at the thing before us that looks too insignificant to amount to anything. The tiniest seed, sown in love, can accomplish a mighty work. Perhaps we have been wrongly naming the manna (the “what is it?”) that has been laid at our feet.
Forgive us for despising the small. Give us eyes to see and words to rename what is before us. In You we lack nothing, and for that Lord, we give You our praise.
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