Just Enough

God can provide from His abundance, but often He invites us to trust Him by giving us just enough for the current time.

Just Enough

This week's devotions are written by my friend Jessica Hermann, former director of our college ministry at Great Hills Baptist Church.

- Pastor Danny

There are simply far too many amazing stories from the life and ministry of the ten Boom family to share with you this week. I highly encourage you to see the films and read some of Corrie's many books. I so appreciate her honesty, vulnerability, and deep abounding love for the Lord. I love watching videos of her speaking and seeing how her face lights up; she always has this little smile when she speaks of her Savior. Really, her example and life just make me love Jesus more as I see what He did in her life and through her.

One of the saving graces for Corrie in the camps was a small bottle of vitamin drops that she got to keep, even though all medication had been confiscated upon arrival. Corrie, with great love for others, would give these drops to her sister and to the other women she knew. Corrie writes in her book, A Prisoner And Yet...:

"I gave it to as many as thirty persons at a time, but the little bottle continued to yield its drops. This went on for six or eight weeks, until the women no longer asked me, 'Do you still have some Davitamon?' but 'Do you still have any oil from the cruse of the widow of Zarephath?' They were right in calling it that, for, as 'the jar of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of Jehovah which he spake by Elijah' (1 Kings 17:16) so also we were experiencing a like miracle." (116)

The Lord miraculously kept the bottle producing drops to sustain the women Corrie was sharing with. As soon as some vitamins from the clinic were snuck in, Corrie's little bottle ran out. It had served its purpose, and God had provided something new. God yielded just enough to provide for the need.

Corrie also tells another story about how opportunities arose to preach to other women, but she felt so weak. The Lord gave her all the strength she needed, and as Corrie recalls, "It was very clear to me that only the work of the Holy Spirit had triumphed here, His strength through my weakness." (135)

Both of these stories remind me of the manna God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness. God began to provide food for His people, and when the manna fell, He instructed them to collect just what they needed. Though God could have provided in mass abundance, filling up storehouses, He invited them to exercise their faith by taking only what they needed, believing that God would provide for them again tomorrow. Sometimes He gives just enough. Speaking of the manna, Exodus 16:18 says, "But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed." God can provide from His abundance, but often He invites us to trust Him and protects us from self-sufficiency by teaching us to rely on Him to provide just what we need when we need it.

What do you need to trust God with for tomorrow? What do you need to give freely of today, trusting that God will still provide you all that you need when you need it? What do you need to reject feeling anxious about by not worrying about the things God is not worried about (that is, everything)?

The Lord will provide. He knows what you need.