As I was going through my bible study this morning, I was re-reading a verse that is often quoted in christian circles.

"Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

As great as that sounds, I've long overlooked the first part of the verse. Context is so important when considering what God is saying to us. The whole verse comes from Hebrews 13:5 and actually says: "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

Yes, it's true that God will always be with us if we allow Him in our lives, but we often fail to realize that we need to be content with our lives because we have God, not because of the things God will give us.
God is enough. We don't need anything else, including money, if we're content in God.

This was especially important to me in light of Steve's recent unemployment.  The old me would have panicked about money, especially since I grew up on a farm during the '80 where people around us were losing their farms (only through the grace of God we didn't loose ours) and most of the food included the commodity food we got for free.(It took me almost 20 years to eat cornbread again 'cause I thought only poor people ate it)

We've been through tough times before and God proved faithful, so you think it would be easy to trust in Him now. When we clear one hurdle another one seems to pop up. I can honestly say I wasn't so concerned about the finances, although in a family of 8 with one income, it was a bit important.  But God has proved faithful in the past with food and a roof over our heads and I trusted He would be faithful again.

The main stressor for me, which I can't get very specific about simply because of confidentiality rules, was that we could lose the foster baby. I was ready to turn over finances to God - but the baby- really? God, do you really need me to trust you with the baby? I know You said to trust You regardless of the worldly situation, but THE BABY?

God and I had to do some serious soul searching. Was I really able to turn everything in my life over to God? About that time, I was also studying about Abram (later called Abraham). God promised him decendents that would be more numerous than the grains of sand on the shore. He waited years for his son Isaac and then God called him to sacrifice him on an alter. The story shows so many parallels to the rest of God's plan and I'd love to write about them too, but the part that impacted me was that God called for a sacrifice, Abram listened, God provided another way. God didn't need to test Abram but Abram did need to decide what was more important in his life; God or his son. When Abram's heart was right, God provided and alternate sacrifice.

I'm not saying that God will always give us what we want in the end, but I am saying that God needs us to search our hearts and be willing to give him whatever is becoming most important/more important than Him (according to the earlier verse, money; in my case this time, the baby) and be content in Him. Then we can lean on the second part of the verse, "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you."
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