My Storehouses Are Not Safe

Good morning and praise God for the rain shower! Let us this morning take a look at another one of those 'oops' questions. The questions that come up in Bible study, or the Sunday sermon, or perhaps just from the Holy Spirit. The ones where you go "Oops, that's me!" Have you ever held up a storehouse to God and said something like, "At least I'm in good shape in this matter"? You might add in a word of praise or thanksgiving, but, oops, that sounds a lot like that rich fellow and his grain bins Jesus spoke about in the parable. In this manner, God has put it into my heart that my storehouses are not safe.

We like a full pantry, a well-stocked freezer (preferably with wild game), well-supplied shelves in the bathroom, and a closet with lots of choices for clothing to wear. Everyone feels the urge to have this; most never achieve all they would like, not even the very wealthy. These storehouses on earth are not safe. Jesus told us to store up treasure in Heaven, where thieves do not break in and the moth or rust does not destroy. Learning to trust in our storehouses is easy, and sneaks up on us until that 'Oops!' However, those storehouses are quite the burden too. We make lists to go to the store, work hard to earn money to pay for the list, and haul the stuff home to immediately begin using up what we just restocked. If the shelves begin to look bare and the back of the fridge comes into view, we start to worry. Many in the world think they would like to have those kind of worries. In this life, rich or poor or somewhere on the scale between, we are going to have all the worries we want to grasp and then some. One storehouse in this world does seem inexhaustible, and that is the one containing all the things we can worry about. A full pantry is but a day or two from becoming an empty pantry. An abundant wheat harvest is only a year or two from empty grain bins. I can't eat a worry, and you can't eat the empty shelves of your pantry.

Faith provides access to God's storehouses, but the definition of faith may not provide what our human eyes want to look at. Our eyes want to gloat over fully-stocked shelves. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Uh, oh... the eyes may get a rest while our knees see more action in prayer. The flesh does cry out in so many ways when things look tough. Shut your worldly eyes, open the eyes of your heart, and pray in faith that God will provide.

Providence, it's the very name of God!
Bucky