Gimme-itis
Thursday Tidbit: Philippians 4:6 – "Be careful for nothing; but in
every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known unto God."
About four years ago, some friends of ours came to visit for the weekend.
During that time one of them stated, "Man, you can play every game in
America at your house," and he wasn’t far from being wrong. Before God’s
new movement in my life, I owned four video game systems plus a computer. I
also had plenty of games to play on each system. Now the downfall to this was
that even though I had some really good games, I had some terrible ones as
well.
This week’s text tells us to be careful (anxious) for NOTHING! Instead, for
(and in) EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication let God know what we want. Also
our text tells us to do this with THANKSGIVING. Sometimes people have a problem
with thanking God in advance because they know that the answer is going to be
no. Or they feel that the amount of money they are spending on a "small
item" is "no big deal." If we aren’t careful, we will end up
with a whole lot of junk, a whole lot of debt and a whole lot of misery.
However, if we "go down" in prayer and ask God for the things that
we want, He might bless us by saying, "No!" You might ask, how can a
"No" be a blessing? Well, instead of that used clunker that you’re
just dying to have, the Lord might have a brand new car waiting for you.
Instead of that two bedroom, one bathroom house, He might have a three bedroom,
two bathroom for you.
Today, Veronica and I go into prayer over our decisions and God has been
blessing us abundantly. For instance, with regard to our house, in July ‘98 the
bank told us that we would not get ANY money at closing, and that more than
likely, we would have to dig deep into our pockets. Instead of accepting that,
we sought God for guidance. By staying in prayer and waiting (even though we
wanted to move in right then) on Him, the Lord blessed us with $698 when we
closed in December–5 months later. (Praise God!!!! – And yes, you’d better
believe we didn’t forget to Tithe either!)
Now back to my video games. The reason why I had so many bad games and
systems was because I had not applied God’s wisdom and guidance in purchasing.
I had applied the "Gimme-itis" principle which led me to jump at the
first thing that came my way. Now I even pray over my video game purchases. And
although I own only two systems and a few games, they are all quality games
that I actually play (not collect). So in all things—decisions, purchases,
desires—take them to the Father in prayer and supplication. You will end up
with a deal that even money can’t buy!