By my own effort
I have decided to not do things that would be me working myself out of my situation by my own effort, so that I can rely on God rather than my own strength. I think that I did this subconsciously in the past - where I was simply unable to complete internet projects. I have mostly dealt with that through the frontier statements that I worked through with a counsellor, but I felt with the 20/20 Challenge that I needed to not struggle and strive to provide my own solution to our problem in this case. And I don’t know, maybe that was right. I do know that I couldn’t have done that as well as the regular employment that I have been doing - the regular work has pushed me to my limit between then and now anyway.
Anyway, my thoughts yesterday took the form of a conversation with someone and went something like this:
“Why haven’t you had any lasting financial success in your life?”
“I have wanted to rely on God - not provide my own solution.”
“But what about people like the Norma Jeans Coffee guy, or the Attitude guy (Jason Whatsisname?)? They don’t seem to have a problem with being a Christian and building a well-paying business.”
“I guess they rely on God for the success in their business.”
As long as I don’t trust in the business income, if I constantly acknowledge that the provider of my short and long term needs is God, if I am aware that God allows the business success, and it can disappear overnight, and that makes no difference, because I am relying on God, not my business for my wherewithall, then I can ‘work as hard as I can, to make as much money as I can, to give away as much as I can’ (ie. Promote God’s kingdom in whatever way I can - finances, time, effort, …).
The question I had a few weeks ago was “what does this ‘living by faith’ actually look like?”. I think I now realise - it is not just sitting back and having everything fall into my lap. That will happen too, but it is also having work offered to me that I can do - having faith that God will provide the employment so that I can work to earn the money that I need. God provides the opportunity - I provide the work.
Jesus says in the book of Matthew, chapter 6:
“Look at the birds. Your heavenly Father feeds them, and you are far more valuable to him than they are.”
Well, take a look at the birds. They don’t just sit around waiting for the worms to crawl past. They get out there and rummage and scratch and work for food. The point is, though, they don’t sit there worrying about where their next meal is coming from. They just do their best and trust God to make it all work out.
And I have been doing my best, and my lessons recently have been to teach me that doing my best does not mean “work until I collapse”, but rather “do what is reasonable”. And it seems that God has engineered things to ensure that my best is just not quite good enough, so I have to rely on Him to make it all work out.
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