Just enough.

The message that my pastor shared this week was the story of Elijah and the widow. If your not too familiar with the story it's in 1 Kings 17 and it starts in verse 7. To give a rough summary God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath and that he's going to dwell with a widow and she will provide for him. So he goes and finds her and he tells her to go make him something to eat with what she has but she responds to him pretty much saying I ony have enough for me and my son to eat and because it was so little they wouldn't have enough to survive and they would die even after they ate what they had. Then Elijah knowing what God told him told her to do it and God would take care of everything else. (Rough summary) So God came through and the flower and oil didn't run out. The way I use to think of this story was how awesome that God blessed them so much. But not trying to take away from the awesomeness of God, but he really didn't give them much. Yes He provided but it wasn't like He blessed them with meat, wine, and better bread, He gave them just enough. Last night at our growth group something new from this story spoke to me. When it comes to the area of God blessings for our lives I believe many of us tend to expect what I call "super abundant blessings" to be poured out on us. I'm not saying that we shouldn't want that, because I believe God can pour out an abundance of blessings on us but that's not how He always does things. Let's be real here we get super excited about the "super abundant blessings" but not so much for God giving us just enough. What spoke to me in this story was how much just enough really was. After talking with the group last night it was pretty clear that when we hear the phrase "just enough" we think of the bare minimum. But in this story we don't see that. When Elijah first asked this widow to make him the cake to eat and she replied that there was barely enough for her and her son to eat but it wasn't enough to even keep them alive, after God provides just enough I now see that God's just enough is more then the bare minimum. They went from having pretty much nothing to having enough for three people to eat. After realizing that we talked about how we need to realize that God just giving us enough is more then we need.
I know we want the "super abundant blessings", I know I want that. I just think that instead of putting such a high expectation/value of the big blessings we need to know that no matter how big or small God choses to bless us, it's way more then enough. So my prayer for us today is that we be super thankful and realize just how much God has blessed us. I pray that in times of trouble and hardship we would take sometime and reflect on all the goodness God has blessed us with. I pray for safety and protection over our weekends, and I pray for faith and strength for us to let God be God.
Have a great weekend, see you back on Monday!