Daily Manna · Day 194 · July 13
All Your Need Supplied
“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
This month, the number in your bank account and the number you owe do not match, and they are not getting any closer.
Step outside for a moment, because a field helps explain this promise. A field cannot store up a whole year of rain in advance. It lives on what falls in each season. James speaks of the farmer who waits "until he receive the early and latter rain." In that land those are two separate rains, months apart. The early rain softens the ground for sowing, and the latter rain fills out the grain before harvest. No one can schedule either one. So a crop depends on a series of arrivals that come in the right order, and a field given all its water in a single week would rot.
That is the shape of Paul's promise: "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Paul does not say God gives out of His riches, as if He handed over a share from a pile. He says "according to" His riches, which is a measure, the way a rich man's giving matches the size of his wealth without ever using it up. And notice the word "need." A need is different from an appetite, and the God who supplies your need is also the One who decides what it is. That is both the comfort and the sting of this phrase.
Look at who this was written to. The church at Philippi had just sent Paul a gift, and they had sent help more than once before: "ye sent once and again unto my necessity." A few lines earlier he tells them, "ye did communicate with my affliction," which means they shared in his trouble. So the promise lands on people whose hands were already open, people who had given and had not just watched.
So pray it the way a farmer waits in his field, trusting the God who has promised to supply.
God, I do not know when the rain will come, and I know I cannot make it come. Feed me in season. Teach me the difference between what I need and what I want, because I have mixed up those words for years. Keep my hands open while the account is low. That is the part I cannot do without You. Amen.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 194 is The Wolf and the Lamb (Isaiah 11:6).