Just Enough Strength

I have been thinking a lot about part of my Pastor's message from Sunday. One of the things he spoke about was the way God is constantly giving us more of what we need. His presence, His gifts, His blessings are not a one time fill up, but rather a constant flow. The Scripture for this came from Ezekiel 47:12 where it describes the river of God flowing from His sanctuary that feeds the trees planted beside its waters. The trees are always bearing fruit and their leaves never wither.

The more I think about this passage, the more I find in it. God doesn't have a limit on how much He can, will and longs to give us. If we walk in humility and obedience He always gives us more. He gives us what we need, when we need it. And on the flip side, He never gives us too much.

Which might sound like a contradiction since I just said that God always wants to give us more. And He does, but He gives it in the right time. Think back to the Israelites in the desert. God gave them manna for the day. No extra (except for the Sabbath), nothing that could be hoarded or stored away "just in case." His blessing fell and it was exactly what they needed for that day. The Israelites needed to learn to rely on God daily for the blessing and strength to get through that day.

Perhaps we're not waiting for literal manna each day, but there is something we need every day. We need God's strength and guidance and mercy. There's a reason the Bible says His mercies are new every day. (Lamentations 3:23) We can't try to store up a bunch of yesterdays blessings and hope that will carry us through. If that were possible the temptation would be for us to lose our daily, intimate walk with God and only come back when our tanks were empty.

We need to wake up each day, commit ourselves to God's care and rely on Him to provide exactly what we need for the day. Then when we go to sleep we need to trust that God already knows what we will need for tomorrow and that it will be waiting for us in the morning.