I don’t know about you, but when things are not going the way I hoped they would, I start to think about all the things that are missing, the things I don’t have. It’s handy! Those don’ts become a nice place to start my list of excuses which I keep close by for such times. After all, if I had more opportunities, more money, more skill, more support, or whatever else I can dream up for the list, I can see why I don’t have what I wanted. It’s clear to me that I just didn’t have the breaks that some other people had.
Here’s the truth though. I do have everything I need. I have it all because God knows the desires of my heart, He equips me to do the work I do, and He knows what He wants from me. So what else do I have? I have the opportunity to improve my skills if they are not strong enough. I have the energy to keep trying. I have the faith to imagine that there truly is more that I can do even if the odds are against me. I have the support of those who care about me and want me to succeed and I have the privilege of prayer. I do have the chance every day to create, to think, to treat others with kindness, to remember that we’re all in this together and that no matter what we do for a living, we live together and therefore we need each other.
Today, I just want to remind us all that our circumstances, our heritage, our financial resources are not all there is. We’ll always have times of plenty and times of scraping by, but we’ll never live in poverty of spirit or soul because God provides those things in generous supply. He doesn’t forget that we need our daily bread, but He also doesn’t buy into our excuses for why we can’t do what we’ve been called to do. Why? He knows what we do have. We have Him and with God by our side we are each a force to be reckoned with.
If you must consider the things you don’t have, do it in the form of remembering, that you don’t have tomorrow, but you do have today. Make it count and be blessed.