Always Have Enough

"You will always have enough, you won't always have plenty."

Sweat drips down his forehead as he prays this vital final prayer before they lead him off to his quickly dealt death-penalty sentence.  Not a man who has lead a criminal lifestyle, but just the opposite - the only innocent & righteous man who has walked the earth.  The One who is, who was, and will set things into proper alignment:  The Man of the hour: Jesus.

What was this vital prayer He had to get out of his mouth before being taken away?  I mean if it were ME, and I was the only innocent & righteous person on earth, and it was nearing my last few moments as a free person on earth...  Sorry my friends but I doubt that my prayer would be consumed with asking God to bring greater unity with you & me!

However looking over the final few sentences of his prayer, those were His words!  (Jn 17)
"I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity."
"...in order that the love you have for me may be in them...I myself in them."

What?!

How about something more like,
"Tear open those heavens, come down here, and take me up!"
 Yeah I would've been asking God to save the one righteous person - which was only Jesus - and all those unrighteous - forgetta 'bout it.  The typical prayer of a human: it's all about me!

This morning when I woke up I felt a small nudge from the Lord saying,

"You will always have enough, you won't always have plenty."

On the upside, it doesn't say "you will never have plenty"...just not always......But, OK first of all, a true Christian would right away thank God for saying that they would always have enough....not what what I did.  (Note sarcasm here): Oh, get ready for my response.  It is pretty profound, most humans only start asking these type of questions when they hit two-years of age.  Oh, and obviously with me being so righteous my reply is, "But why can't I always have plenty?" 

And with such a mature reply from me, God met me at where I am at.  The next thing I hear is the Rolling Stones:
"You can't always get want, you can't always get what you want, you can't always get what you want...you get what you need."

In which I laughed, and thought OK....touché.

So for what purpose is it that God won't always give us more than enough, always running over from the start?

I think of all the good I could do for God - of course ;) :-P   Why wouldn't he just give me exceedingly bountiful resources and STUFF.

There in lies the problem.  Stuff is stuff.  In the end it does nothing for you.  Stuff is not the purpose of your existence.  The purpose was for relationship, with the only Way (Jn 14:6) to be complete, satisfied, filled, and running over inside to the outside.  Part of the answer: we have to learn to be filled by Him to therefore desire HIM.  Desire Him more than all the stuff, because walking in Unity with the Lord is the only way to truly be fulfilled.  If we don't learn this we will never actually be satisfied, because once you feel that fulfilling of Him in you, you will be wrecked and desire more of Him, you will realize that actually nothing else satisfies.  If He didn't teach us this - that nothing else satisfies - if instead He always just gave us an overflow of stuff, we wouldn't learn until a very late age that HE IS ALL THAT SATISFIES.  If He didn't teach us this - to the One's He loves - that wouldn't be love at all...that would actually be truly with-holding.

Just to flip the whole question on the head: NOT with-holding this vital lesson is not with-holding at all!
Let me say it again: NOT with-holding this vital lesson, is not with-holding at all!

In other words God is actually doing the opposite of with-holding and giving us much more by teaching us to depend on him for our daily needs (Matt. 6:11), then if He would just give us the years supply or the lifetime supply of stuff.  It's so vital that with the last prayer He prays out, Jesus is asking for UNITY with us, that's His heart's cry: our TRUE fulfillment.  Walking in step with him, walking in relationship with Him, a two way dialogue, a step with with Him and step from you.  It is vital to our true fulfillment, not whether or not we have enough money to get Starbucks today or for the year or for a lifetime....that is not so vital.

Taking it deeper:
John 17 - Jesus' prayer for unity
Eccl 4 - A three threaded cord not easily broken
Genesis 1-3 - God creates man
Rolling Stones : You Can't Always Get What You Want :

Hillsong : This Is The Air I Breath :