I often advocate for a balanced approach to life. People get a little dizzy when their lives get out of balance. Humans have a tendency to lean to the extremes. We can obsess over anything.
I have been pondering about being sufficient in God versus self-sufficiency. As Christians, there needs to be an overriding reliance upon God without becoming child-beggars. The things we can do with our hands and minds are only possible because of God. He gives us health, strength, knowledge, and the ability to reason and create.
When my children were small, they loved the frozen waffles Eggo®. At first, I cut them up with a fork and knife. Then I tried to teach them to use the utensils, but they were not coordinated enough. So, I made them tear them into pieces with their hands before we poured on the syrup. Just a wee lesson on being self-sufficient.
Good parents teach their children to grow up to be responsible adults with reasonable self-sufficiency.
God loves to see His children solve problems, build things, create, paint beautiful pictures, and play beautiful music. He is glorified when we see our own work and give Him the thanks for the ability we have. I’m sure your picture is on God’s refrigerator, but He has one of my coloring sheets on it.
God created us to create. God worked six days to make a place for us and to make us in His image. An aspect of that image is to create as He created. He made everything from nothing. We get to re-purpose pallets into all sorts of cool things.
When we were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, God told mankind that man would eat by the sufficiency of his work. “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground” (Genesis 3:19 NKJV).
“Much food is in the fallow [un-cultivated] ground of the poor” (Proverbs 13:23 NKJV). Many folks are sitting on potential.
Yes, our sufficiency is in God. Our next breath is in His hand. Our next logical thought is in His hand. Our very lives and our next day are in His hand. Yet, He loves to see His children be self-sufficient in life to the degree of being productive adults.
“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5 NKJV).
Make God smile, get up and go do something!
Yours on the Journey,
Harry L. Whitt
You might enjoy a related blog I wrote years ago, “I Shine My Own Shoes.” You can read it here.
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