Having It All

When I was young, I wanted it all.  All.  Not that I really knew what that meant, but I knew I wanted it anyway.  I wanted my education, I wanted nice clothes, a nice car, a wonderful man, a house, a career, children.  Oh, yes, I wanted it all, and I was convinced that I could have it all too.  When I didn't get what I thought I deserved, I would cry and ask God, "why"?  Why did others seem to have it all, while I struggled?  At different times in my life, I whined to the Lord about whatever I thought I was missing, or about how unfair it was that someone else had what I wanted.

As I matured, the whining lessened, and my relationship with the Lord became much stronger.  I questioned Him less and less, and accepted the life I was given, albeit not always joyfully.  But somewhere in these last ten years, probably while I was still in the desert of my life, I learned a great lesson.  I look back now on the five years I spent living in a physical desert in El Paso, and remember the Spiritual desert I crossed, and the emotional desert I experienced while my husband served our country, in Korea, for two years without me.  It was such a difficult time, and at first, I moaned and complained to the Lord daily.  Maybe hourly would be more accurate.  I am sure He was sick to death of hearing my whiny voice asking for the same things over and over again.  I thinks somewhere in the middle of year two alone, which would have actually been year four in the desert, I began to understand.  God was teaching me to trust Him, to rely on Him, to seek Him, to find comfort, joy, love, and companionship in Him.  He knew that I needed to learn that He has it ALL.  Everything I need or want, I can find in Him.  I had been so busy focusing on the material world around me, I was missing the spiritual blessing He had in store for me.  Those were hard years, and I do not care to repeat them, but I am thankful for a loving God, who used my circumstances to teach me to trust and rely on him totally for my ALL.

Today, I know already have it ALL, and that I have had access to it ALL from the very first time I accepted Christ.  I am the daughter of the King, not a king, but THE KING!  That makes me a very special princess, and my Father loves me unconditionally.  He gives me unlimited access to His throne, to his love, to his limitless riches.  The Bible says God owns the sheep on a thousand hills, meaning everything is His, and since I am an heir to His riches, it is all mine, too.  I know now that my ALL has nothing to do with material wealth, or physical comfort, but with the much more important Spiritual riches that are everlasting.  I crave those riches, love, peace, kindness, patience, faith, joy, hope, and so on.  I hunger for my time with my Father, the King, because He always gives me of these riches in abundance.  My cup is truly filled, pressed down, and running over.  I do have it all, ALL, ALL, and I am so humbled by this and so thankful for it.