A few days to the end of 2018, I was reminded of a lesson from the story of Elijah and the Widow at Zerephath, I was reminded that the widow and her son received their miracle from what they had left, not from anything they had lost.

This came back after reading some tweets of people who were honest enough to say they definitely hadn’t crushed all the goals of 2018, but were hoping to do better in 2019 and I got excited at the thought of the lesson because despite all the lows and losses that left the goals underachieved, the best realisation was that ‘what is left’ is enough for the miracle.

Elijah’s words to her were “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have…”

Some of us think that the miracles will come from the whole of whatever, we think it has to come from a perfect and whole us, a perfect bank account, a perfect age, a perfect friend or even a perfect family. We sometimes forget that God doesn’t choose people to work in based on the status of a person but on the availability and willingness of the heart in question.

The losses never contained the miracle, they did contain opportunities but not the miracle. The widows miracle came from the “…handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug”. After the abundance of the flour and oil had been exhausted and she was down to the little left.

Were humans, as such we tend to spend more time on the things and people that did not work and forget the ones that did, we allow the devil rob us of our joy and peace as a result of the losses which sometimes really aren’t our fault, but I’m challenging us to see it from the eyes of Elijah, from the eyes of God, that despite the gravity of the loss, the one that remains is where the miracle will come from.

It will help us be optimistic, to focus on the blessings and not the losses, to remain grateful of the blessings rather than tolerant of the blessings God has bestowed on us and my prayer for us is that even as we remain in this mind frame, “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land”.

This week, we’re choosing to walk in gratitude, in abundance, in the mindset of ‘the remaining’.

In bible study last week, we were talking about how God loves to lay a foundation for His children always, before He begins to build anything.

Our discussion progressed to understanding what God might do if a man builds already before he finds God, which often is the case. The question was, ‘will God carry on with whatever he is already building, or will He require the man to start over with Him?’ And as you can imagine, there was a range of answers, all presenting different perspectives and understanding of God, we looked into some bible stories with similar examples and I think the conclusion arrived at was that Gods demand on a man’s life to restart or continue with what he has already started to build is completely at the discretion of God’s sovereignty. Because sometimes he requested a fresh start from foundation level, other times, He worked around what was on ground and made beauty of it, but it was important that we purposed in our hearts to get it right from the start, from now, follow and go with God, rather than wait till we’ve built what we wanted and then invite Him in.

In the course of it all, a question emerged; ‘Do we think that God sometimes might be a spoiler? or a bit negative?’ seeing as some people are scared to ask God’s plan on certain things because they fear He might respond in the one way they don’t want to go.

Take for example, the rich man who sought validation, asking Jesus what must be done to be saved, after Jesus answered and He was validated, Jesus then advised him to go and sell all his possessions and give to the poor, and as we saw, this one threw him off guard because it was the crux of his desires.

Often times, it’s same with us, we think God to be the person who wants to take away all the good things and experiences in our life just so we can focus and love Him wholly, we think He is watching closely for anything that brings us more-than-is-needed pleasure so He can come and demand it of us, and as such, were scared sometimes to ask His opinion on certain aspects of our life.

An interesting story that always pops up among Christians is that of Abraham and Isaac, people are often perplexed as to why God requested Isaac be sacrificed even when He knew already that Abraham trusted Him completely and had waited so long for that promise. Why did God still need to set that test for Him? Did He want to cut His joy short? or maybe create a plot twist in the original plan?

Questions people are sometimes tossing around internally.

Here’s a summarised answer, God was never after Isaac, He was after Abraham’s heart. The whole ordeal was not in any way about Isaac, it was all about Abraham’s heart. The same is with us, all the things and people we feel we’re ‘protecting’ from God are the least of God’s problems, all He’s after is You, and if those things need to go to get to you, they will.

You is all that matters to God. Not the Work or the possession or even the career. And it makes so much sense cause when He has us, He has direct link to all those other things in our reach.

He isn’t trying to be the spoiler, as a matter of fact, He’s trying to be the beautifier, the Good father, the meticulous potter and the careful creator. When we grasp how much we mean to God, it’ll make so much sense to us why sometimes He allows certain things to go just so We can see Him clearly.

When next you’re at that verge of believing ‘God is being a spoiler now’, look for your heart in all of it, is it on God or is it somewhere else?

This Morning, I was reminded again of how inadequate I am and how adequate grace for me is, an excerpt from my devotional said;

” If you prayed every moment of your life, you could not pray enough prayers to earn acceptance with God,

If you gave every penny of every dollar that you ever earned in every job you ever had, you could not give enough to deserve acceptance with God,

If every word you ever spoke was uttered with the purest of conscientious motivations, you would never be able to speak your way into reconciliation with God,

If you gave yourself to an unbroken, moment-by-moment life of ministry, you could never minister enough to achieve God’s favour.”

Sin is too big, God’s bar is too high for us to think that we might be able to earn His righteousness by the greatest of our deeds.

The faster we grasp this Grace, the easier this journey becomes. God isn’t looking out for your performance.

Christ said ‘It is finished’.

We always wait a few days before we acknowledge celebration on this blog, and frankly, it is intentional. We realise that on the day of any national event or holiday were  all bombarded with congratulatory and well meaning messages on the day and frankly, it might get long and boring so at some point, we begin to scheme read and not really read to get the message in the content.

For us, day 7 of the New Year is the best time to come say our own Happy New Year because you might have replied or deleted all other Happy New Year messages by now and settled proper into 2019.

Nothing different came with 01/01/19 except a fresh orbit of the earth round the sun and the obvious change in date. The only other changes that will be occurring will be the ones intentionally decided with measurable steps to achieve them, so by day 7, you know already that anything you have not consciously decided to stop, start or pause, is not going to miraculously happen oblivious to you.

We announced on the Instagram page couple of days ago on FOCH woman’s theme of the year. We said it is a year of Depth! Growing in depth in whatever God has placed in your hands. The beautiful thing of depth is that it is directly linked to growth. There is no depth without a level of growth, so as we strive to increase depth, we strive to grow.

Here’s wishing you your best year yet!

Foch Team x