Over-Concern with a Lack of is a Form of Idolatry - Warrior Mom Wisdom - Week of October 28

“Over-Concern with a Lack of is a form of Idolatry.”

I grew up on Welfare, so I’ve experienced poverty. Especially, since I grew up in a house that did not know God, I knew what it was like to experience a complete “lack” in the physical as well as the spiritual side of life. Since coming to know the Lord (at the age of 14), I have begun to get a hold of the riches of His Kingdom. Sure, throughout my adult life, due to some of my own mistakes as well as due to experiences I could not control (special needs for my son and medical bills), I have experienced what it feels like to not have money in the physical realm. As a result, I have had practice learning how to trust Him in the spiritual realm - to supply all my son’s needs, my needs, and my family’s needs, according to His riches and glory. I’ve witnessed evil people become rich, and I’ve watched them spend money on expensive shoes when I needed money for socks for growing children, cochlear implant parts, or money to see an eye specialist. For a long time, this type of thing really messed with my faith. I could not understand how we would be experiencing lack, and someone else, not even seeking after God’s heart, could be experiencing complete abundance. God has since shown me that rain falls on the just and the unjust and that the thorn and the rose will grow together for a time. I am not to be overly concerned with other’s excess or my lack (in the material sense). More so, I am to be concerned with who God is: my Father and ultimate provider who is able to supply all my needs.

Through The Warrior Mom Handbook, God really began to show me that I must focus more on the spiritual if I am to survive in the physical. He began showing me this important lesson 12 years ago when my son, Jacob, was born profoundly deaf. I was forced to rely on the spiritual strength of God to speak through deafness to my son. Again, when Jacob was 5 and diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, I had to trust in a God I could not see with my physical eyes, to secure Jacob’s sight. I had to begin to walk by faith, not by sight. I could list other situations, through my relationships, education, the ministry and everyday victories and trails about how God has been wooing me to seek the spiritual, rather than the physical riches of this world. It’s interesting, however, how I have remained tied down, somewhat, in my mind, by the physical reality of bills, sickness, and schedules.

God recently told me that when I become overly concerned with my lack…. (for example, an upcoming $600 dental bill that must be paid in 2 weeks, other deadlines and demands of work and the ministry), and I go to God in ½ belief and fear, petitioning to Him that He pay the expenses for me, while all the while losing sleep over it, He becomes concerned. He becomes concerned, as any kind parent would, that I am focusing more on what I don’t have, worried that I won’t get it, than I am focused in faith on His ability to provide my need. As a result of this lesson, He has broadened my spiritual perspective. He is asking me to walk in the Spirit on a continual basis. The other day He said, very clearly, “Over-Concern with a lack of money is a form of idolatry.” Now that a few days have gone by, and I have been able to digest this seemingly reverse concept (for I always thought of worshipping an excess of riches as a form of idolatry, but never had I considered a bowing down to worry about not enough as a form of idolatry), I understand more fully how His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than ours. More importantly, I understand how I have worshipped in worry to the wood idol of poverty my entire life.

To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? As for an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple.

Isaiah 40:18-20

I type this devotional, very humbled with the awareness that I, in my “lack,” have looked for a wood idol that I could afford, and I have bowed down to it in worry. I have looked more at the value of my circumstances rather than to the creator of all the earth. God is kindly stretching my faith. He understands that we must pray and ask Him for things. He wants us to ask Him for all things, but He does not want us to ask Him while we simultaneously bow down to a wood idol, limiting Him and His potential based upon the amount of our current possessions (net worth). I see now that I am to claim in faith what I can’t see in the physical. It is this kind of faith, as small as a mustard seed, that will enable me to say to that mountain, “Be moved!” and it will! I am going to begin to walk in the spiritual, claiming and thanking Him for the things to come as if they are! Before I grab another cup of coffee and leave for the day, and before you do as well, I invite you to consider the idols that you (or your parents for you) have unknowingly set up around you since childhood.

“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens; Who created all these?

Isaiah 40:25-26                        

Warrior Moms Unite!®

Love,
Kristina

The Warrior Mom Ministry was founded by Kristina Seymour, author of The Warrior Mom Handbook – Equipping Women through the Word, a Bible study for moms who desire to live by faith in the midst of their everyday lives. Kristina has learned that moms can't survive on caffeine and animal crackers alone; women in the Word and in community are united and able to stand firm. To learn more about The Warrior Mom Handbook, the Warrior Mom Ministry, and to sign up for daily encouragement, visit, www.warriormoms.net.