Everything Comes from God

       O Lord our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee a house for thine holy nmae cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own.

I Chronicles 29:16 (KJV)

         I was 18 years old when I got my first full time job, and I learned an important lesson about the discipline of saving money. I worked and saved until I had enough money for a year of school. The my mom had emergency surgery, and I realized I had the money in the bank to pay for her operation.

          My love for my mother suddenly took precedence over my plans for the future. These words in the book Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot took on new meaning: "If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul. It is easy to make a mistake here, 'If God gave it to me,' we say, 'it's mine. I can do what I want with it.' No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him,... ours to let go of."

         I realized that the job I had received and the discipline of saving were gifts from God! I could give generously to my family because I was sure God was capable of seeing me through school another way, and He did.

         Today, how might God want us to apply David's prayer from I Chronicles 29:14 "But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee." (KJV)

         Lord, we know there is nothing

that we have that we obtained on

our own. It's all Yours. Help us to

have open hands for You

to give and take as You please.

Increase our faith.

Everything belongs to God.