Daily Manna · Day 81 · March 22
Everything Provided
“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:”
His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness.
Given. That is the word to stay with, and in Greek it is a perfect participle, which is a tense English does not really have: an action completed in the past whose result is still standing. Not gives, not will give, not is willing to give. Has given, and the giving holds. Peter uses the same root again in the very next line about the promises, so the whole opening of his letter is built on a delivery that has already happened.
Read the boundary in the sentence, because it is there and it is generous rather than mean. All things that pertain unto life and godliness. Not all things you want. Not all things that would make this year easier. Everything required to live the way you were called to live, which is a smaller list than your wish list and a larger one than your patience feels like this morning. And the route by which it reaches you is named: through the knowledge of him that hath called us. Not a technique, not a stricter schedule. Knowing a person.
Halfway through a hard conversation yesterday you ran out of patience you did not have to start with. Again.
So the honest question is not whether you were given enough. It was given, past tense, and it is still standing there. The question is what you were drawing on at the moment you ran dry, and whether you had spent any time that week with the one it comes through.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 81 is Where Daniel Drew It (Daniel 1:8).