God of Enough, via Disciplines 2019

A funny thing happened on the way to writing this post: I forgot about the God of Enough.

I know that sentence means little to you, so let me explain. As you may know, I am a writer and a speaker; although my children question whether Mama actually has a job because she works from the kitchen and the living room and sometimes (if she’s feeling particularly writerly) her office too. Although my book has dominated much of my time over the last year and a half, when the rest of life allows for it, I not only enter into the creative side of writing but I put my art out there into the world.

Sometimes I’m sending out pitches on the regular, potential submissions to different print and online magazines part of my weekly grind. And sometimes, when life feels like a lumpy, fifty-pound bag of potatoes tied with rope to my backside, I’m lucky to squeak out a single pitch in two months’ time.

It happens.

And when “it” happens, that’s when I try to play grace, grace, grace, over and over again on the record player of my mind.

That being said, nearly two years ago, I was in a season of pitching on the regular. I was pitching my heart out, dreaming big and not making apologies and feeling over the moon when I was invited to participate as a contributor to Upper Room’s Disciplines 2019.

As happens in the traditional publishing world, though, you might write something and not see it in print for another nine, twelve, eighteen months. Such was the case with the week of devotional material I was assigned, because when I opened up the book earlier this evening, I couldn’t remember what I’d written.

I could recall a story or two – about a man experiencing homelessness, about the positive effects of honey (instead of sugar) on my arthritis inflammation, about my children singing Christmas carols year-round – but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the overall theme.

I had forgotten, until I browsed its pages, that everything I wrote centered on the God of Enough. 

I had forgotten that when we build “…bigger tables instead of higher fences, we acknowledge that God alone is enough” (285), just as I had forgotten my own exhortation to “…start singing a Christmas song of our own so we can hear the truth that God’s love is enough for us” (286). I had forgotten the prayer I prayed at the end of Wednesday’s devotion, the one that feels as near as the caravans traveling north today: God, give me the courage to show hospitality to the sojourner, the immigrant, the refugee and the stranger. Amen (287). I had forgotten about digging into the words of the prophet Jeremiah, how springs and cisterns remind us not to “…miss God’s bountiful, evident gift of enough” (288).

I had forgotten that every single passage centered on this single theme, a theme I didn’t set out to fill but a theme given me, straight from the One who puts words in my mouth and sets my fingers a typin’ in the first place.

I don’t know about you, but this is something I don’t ever want to forget.

I don’t want to forget about the “…subversive nature of God, who reverses our expectations and understandings and who promises that those who host the marginalized out of their abundance will be ‘repaid at the resurrection of the righteous'” (289), just as I don’t want the fruit of my lips to neglect the practice of praise and thanksgiving (290). And when I put a spoonful of honey into my cup of coffee in the morning, I don’t want to forget about the promises of God, “…not only the promises that should have been but the promises that very well will be” (291).

So, my dears, wherever you are and whatever it is that you’re going through today, might you see and rest in the God of Enough.

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I’ve got a couple of special things for you: first, I’m giving away TWO copies of Disciplines 2019, which you can win by simply leaving a comment below! (As per the usual, this contest runs also alongside my Instagram account on Thursday and Friday of this week – be sure to head over there too!) Finally, if you’d like to purchase a copy of Disciplines 2019 for yourself, your church or a small group of friends, use the code caramac19 at the Upper Room checkout. Discount code good until August 1, 2019!