Served Up - God's Abundant Provision

Each Wednesday evening a group of ladies from my church meets for an hour or so. Our main focus is prayer but we also have some interesting conversations. Several months ago we were talking about how God has supplied everything we need but we don't always seem to know how to receive it. And then one lady made the observation that it's almost as absurd as it would be if our children kept coming to us asking when dinner is going to be ready, complaining they are hungry and begging us to feed them when we have already called them to a prepared (and delicious) meal that has been set out on the table.

Imagine this scene:

Child - "When is dinner going to  be ready?"

Parent - "It is ready dear.  Let's sit to the table and eat."

Child - "But I feel so hungry."

Parent -  "You are hungry because you haven't eaten the food I have already prepared and placed in the table before you."

Child - Looks at table then says

"I hear you say you the food is ready and available and yet I am so hungry."

Parent - "Yes, of course you are hungry. You haven't eaten any of this delicious food that's on the table right in front of you."

Child - "I just don't understand. I know you have everything here I need but I'm so unsatisfied. I just feel so empty. Why can't I feel full?'

This conversation would be so very frustrating to a parent. It would be hard to watch a child feeling miserable, starving, and know that as a parent you had done everything possible to make sure this child was fed, yet the child would not accept or take advantage of the bounty placed before him or her. It has to be frustrating for our Heavenly Father as well.

Why do we do this to ourselves? God is who He says He is and He does what He says He will do, we are who He says we are in Him. Only when I accept that, and understand that even though I can't always see what He's doing He is still to be trusted, can I feel satisfied and know He is meeting my needs. Even if the child in the above scene was blind and couldn't see the food spread out and ready to eat, the fact that it was there would not have changed. The child would have had to simply believed that what the parent told them was true - the food was there, it was good and all the child had to do was reach out and partake. And in the same way, even if I can't see what I am told is mine, it is there, I simply have to take hold.