Monday Memo 1205: Create More Need
We have been examining the connection between finances and your purpose, for often the main roadblock in your purpose search is not having the answer to the question, "How will I pay my bills if I just do what I love?'. We know God can provide, but unless we know the exact source He will use before He uses it, it's difficult to trust that the money will be there when needed. And when I wrote the word 'need,' I think of Paul's oft-quoted verse:
And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19, emphasis added).
We know the truth of that verse but would still like to know how He will provide. Without that knowledge, we tend to relegate purpose to a lofty ideal that many dream about but few achieve. It shouldn't be that way.
James wrote in his epistle, "You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures" (James 4:2b-3). Long before James wrote what he did, Jesus said, "You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it" (John 14:14). All this seems to require extreme faith, so we tend to settle for a mundane workaday life when an abundant life awaits. We are afraid of asking for too much and being disappointed, so therefore we ask for too little.
It seems to me there are two things to focus on in these verses. One is that God will supply your needs and not your wants. If that's true, then the key to your provision is creating more need. But you may ask, "Isn't that trying to manipulate God?" and the answer is yes—in a way. But if the need you create is to bear fruit, which is the context for John 14, then God will, God has to, provide the resources for you to serve others through your creative purpose.
The second thing I see is that your prayer life is the key to your provision. James implied that if you ask God for what you need and it isn't simply to get more stuff or status, then God will provide. And since God wants you to fulfill your purpose more than you do, He is thereby obligated to provide what you need in order to get the job done.
Since 2014, I have worked without a fixed salary. Every month, God provides for my needs, often through unusual and unexpected sources. When I needed hundreds of thousands of dollars to help build a school in Kenya, He provided. When I needed resources to do my leadership training work in South America, God provided. I created the need for the resources by determining what God wanted me to do—what I needed to do—before the resources came. And oh yes, included in that was money for my family's needs, but not our wants and wishes.
Where can you create the need as you seek to carry out God's will? Why not test Him in this and see if He is able? And then if He is, where can you go from there? What other needs can you create for which you can pray and see the provision?
God is not threatened or displeased when His children and workers trust Him for what they need to do His will. That being said, start creating some purpose needs and then pray, asking God to meet them. I know He will do for you what He has done for me, and that is provide what I needed to carry out the good works He has created me to do. Have a blessed week.