“If God Didn’t Meet It, I Didn’t Need It”

Part of our testimony includes the fact that Jim and I were very well off financially when we became Christians. Well, it wasn’t long before Jim decided he wanted to resign from his job and attend seminary so he could go into the ministry. To do this meant we had to sell our really nice home and our second car-and move our family of four to a 900-square-foot house.

You wouldn’t believe how long the list of “Things This House Didn’t Have” was! And the biggies were a dishwasher and air-conditioning (how’s that for living in the California desert?). All I can say is it was a really good thing I was learning to pray every day.

Well, I took my “Things This House Didn’t Have” list and placed it before God in prayer every single day. I prayed right through the list, ticking off each lack on the list. And the next morning and the next I did the same thing again and again-for years!

That’s when I developed a saying that helped me through each day’s money trials. My job was to pray daily about my perceived needs. God’s job was to meet the “needs” if and when we truly needed them, to meet them in His timing and in His way. Thus my little saying was born: “If God didn’t meet it, I didn’t need it.”

Each day I faithfully laid my needs into God’s lap through prayer, and each day I was able to rise up from prayer and go about my day without another thought about our finances. They were where they needed to be-in God’s hands.

Read “If God Didn’t Meet It, I Didn’t Need It” on Elizabeth & Jim George.