I am currently studying and teaching through the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes and have been reflecting on the essential theme of the journal, which is a challenge to loosen our grip on the world and its grip on us. I have been looking at how the things of this world are transient and unsatisfying and how that realization ought to lead us to the only One who isn’t, Jesus Christ.
Well, in the process of disconnecting from this world and connecting more and more to God’s Son, I have come to look at things a little differently today than I have in the past. What I have been experiencing is an untangling of sorts from the trappings of the world that have captured my attention and energy for many years. And, one of those things that I feel I am being freed from is the snare of ambition.
For some reason I have always been interested in and motivated by success in whatever field I have been engaged. Whether it was in marketing, recruitment, demography, real estate or vocational ministry, I have always been motivated and inspired to drive for more, never settling for the status quo or mediocrity. The downside of that kind of drive is that you never feel settled and are often discontent, and that is something I have always been at odds with in my own life.
All of this is to say that after plumbing the depths of Solomon’s wisdom and meditating on it each day, I have come to a stunning and convicting realization about life here on earth. For me, it is a mystery solved that now just needs to be applied. The epiphany that rocked my world and hopefully will also rock yours too is that I think I have been praying the wrong prayer all along. All of these years, I have been praying for God to give me more…more income, more comfort, more enjoyment, more experience, more influence and more responsibility. More, more, more, and I have a feeling I am not the only one who has been praying this way.
And, here’s the thing. I have been trained to pray this way because that is apparently what ambitious people do. Those we admire seem to pray for more, those who write the books we read usually tell us we should pray for more, and those who teach us often encourage us to ask for more. The central example of this kind of praying perhaps is the best selling The Prayer of Jabez that unabashedly taught us all to ask God to “enlarge our territory” and ask God for more, which oddly enough isn’t really at all what Jesus taught us to do.
In the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew it says that Jesus taught his disciples how to pray saying, “Pray like this: Our Father on heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread…” And, there it is. So simple and yet so profound. Notice that in his instruction Jesus does not tell us to ask for more bread but for enough bread. There is a difference.
Literally, Jesus tells us to ask God each day for enough food to eat, and by implication that includes clothing and shelter for the day. He does not instruct us to ask for more than that. In fact, just a few verses later Jesus tells us not be anxious about our lives, about food, clothing and shelter because God knows what we need and will add them to our lives. Conversely, Jesus adds that needing or asking for more is actually consistent with the lives of nonbelievers and not disciples.
When we read Jesus’ instruction to pray “Give us this day our daily bread” it is logical and helpful to connect this to the bread that God gave to Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. In Exodus 16 we read that God gave manna, or bread from heaven, to the people of Israel as their sole sustenance during their journey to the Promised Land. It says that with the dew of the morning, there came a fine, flaky bread that was more than enough to feed everyone each day. However, there was only enough for that day.
We read that the bread from heaven quickly rotted and melted away if it was not consumed, so God did not give them more than was needed for each day during their exodus. It says that they gathered new manna “morning by morning” or day by day as it was given, and that they did this for the entire 40 years that they wandered! What they learned from this providential experience was an important lesson for them and should also be an important lesson for us. The lesson is that God sovereignly provides for his children, and his superintended provisions are enough.
So, if God always provides enough, then why do we keep asking for more? There is a most interesting biblical passage in Proverbs 30. In verses 7 through 9, it says: “Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”
This is a most convicting truth. The author of this Scripture asks God for two things in life. First, he asks God to make him honest. And, second, he asks for God to make him satisfied. Interestingly, he asks God NOT to make him rich or poor, but rather to give him enough. He goes on to say that if God gives him riches, then he will become distracted and will forget God, and if God makes him poor, then he will become a thief and dishonor God. Therefore, he doesn’t want to be either rich or poor…he just wants to be content.
So then, how does all of this relate to us? Well, these Scriptures both explicitly and implicitly show us that we have perhaps been praying the wrong prayers. Rather than asking God to give us more, we should be asking God to give us enough. This means not asking God for more money, more food, more clothes, more space, more luxury or more amusement. Instead this means asking God for just enough of these things to be enjoy the life He has given us and be pleasing to Him while we are here.
In light of all this, I am convinced that asking God for more is not the right prayer. Rather, what we should be asking God for is “enough”. In other words, we should be asking for enough money to live affordably, enough shelter to live comfortably, enough clothes to dress appropriately and enough food to eat moderately. Anything more than that is more than enough and should be considered excess. And, if there is excess, then we really ought to think about giving it away and not keeping it for ourselves.
In 2 Corinthians 9, for example, we are told that God supplies seed and bread to us and each for different purposes. The seed is for investment and the bread is for consumption, and that means bread is to be kept for ourselves and seed is to be given away to others. Interestingly, God does not promise to give us more bread, only more seed. Paul writes: “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Cor. 9:10). Conspicuously absent from the passage is any promise that God will give us more “bread” to consume for ourselves. Instead, it says that God wants the excess “seed” to be invested in the kingdom to help others. Paul adds: “The ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but it also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God” (2 Cor. 9:12).
So, what I have concluded in all this is that many of us, myself included, have probably confused bread and seed. I am quite convinced that we have been eating the seed and not planting it, and the end result is not only a materialistic culture but also a malnourished church. When we start presuming that more wealth means more to spend on ourselves, then we have tragically missed the biblical directive of generosity. Biblical generosity means only keeping for ourselves what we need and giving the rest away joyfully to others.
In my estimation, hoarding in the church is an embarrassingly obvious problem that is not only crippling the credibility of the gospel message but also compromising the mission of the church to care for others. The truth is that there is so much excess wealth sitting around in real estate assets, brokerage accounts and savings plans belonging to Christians that it is extraordinarily shocking that we can’t even take care of our own, let alone take care of others. At a time when the church’s credibility and mission in America is hanging in the balance, it is a shame that so many Christians are sitting on so much.
My point in saying all this is simply to share how I have been disturbed by my own selfishness and embarrassed by the collective selfishness that I see in the church today. As a pastor, I am honestly frustrated with the stunning inconsistency between what the Scriptures say about generosity and contentment and what I see in the everyday lives of so many Christians today. And, what really burdens me is the fact that so many Christians don’t even seem to notice it. They just keep on asking for more and spending it on themselves without ever asking if that kind of personal consumption is consistent with what the Lord desires.
In light of this revelation, my hope is that we would be courageous enough to confront ourselves with this issue and honest enough to talk about what needs to change in ourselves and in the church. Toward that end, I pray that a revolution would occur in the lives of believers everywhere and that we would finally be liberated from the things of this world that capture us like ambition, wealth and success. And, it is my belief that we will finally experience this kind of freedom in life once we learn to no longer ask for more but for enough.
Mother Teresa once famously said that God did not call her to be successful but to be faithful, and even though I’ve heard many people repeat that statement over the years, I’m not sure just how many people really believe it. Clearly, she believed it. But, what about the rest of us? As a pastor, I live in a world of church growth fanatics who seem to endlessly strategize and fixate upon how to become successful in building a church ministry.
