A Worship Magazine
Easley Presbyterian Church
Easley, SC
Nov. 2017
Vol. 3 Issue 7
A common thread that joins us together with Christ and with each other.
Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:11-13 O God Who Does Provide all things necessary for our lives, be present with us now in our stewardship. For there is little in this life that will so starkly reveal our insecurities and our struggle to trust your tender care as will the state of our hearts when we consider the state of our finances — when we are anxious about our money, O Lord, we can slip so easily into the downward spiral of believing that simply having more of it would guarantee our security. As if our security could ever rest anywhere outside of you, O God. So guard our hearts against that lie. Let us learn to view money and all material things as an area in which to learn and practice a more faithful stewardship, and as a means by which to invest in things eternal—but never as ends in themselves. Where we have mishandled your provision, where we have stumbled in our stewardship and our undoing has been our own
doing, where we have through the workings of our own desires unwisely accrued expense or debt, grant us conviction, and vision, and better wisdom, that we would more faithfully steward these resources in months to come. But where we are merely beset by the common and inescapable expenses of faithfully tending the many needs within our spheres of responsibility, give us peace and, O Lord, give us even joy, to see as we allocate these funds for the paying of bills, how you have faithfully provided the means by which we pay them. And if we have enough to do that, let us practice contentment in what you have provided. And if we have more than enough to do that, then teach us what it would mean to begin to live more generously towards those whose needs are greater than out own, for we have you, and having you we have all things, and month-tomonth you are teaching us— in this paying of bills—the slow vocation of trust. Do not abandon us to our anxieties over finances, O Lord, but use those worries to turn our hearts and thoughts to you— then teach us both a greater contentment and a greater confidence in your constant care. Amen. —Douglas Kaine KcKelvey, “Every Moment Holy”