When does material blessing become a warning?

God meets our needs. Paul wrote, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). The problem is, we tend to want more from God than what we need. We want a full pantry, full bank account, full days of leisure, and full tanks of gas. Our definition of a blessing is often viewed through the needs and wants of a child of the world, not as a child of God.

In fact, the more God’s children are exposed to this world, the more we seem to want from God, not because our needs have changed but because the world has changed our priorities. We see what others have and what stores are selling, and we begin to think we need more than we used to need.

Material blessing becomes a warning when we begin to desire more than we have been blessed with. The simple solution is to find contentment with what we have and count those blessings as abundance.

I used to think our European friends had fewer material things than Americans because of their economy. Jim and I realized that many Europeans and other friends from around the world don’t have the same things Americans have because they have learned they don’t need them. Instead, they fill their time with good food and long conversations. Their economies are funded by fewer hours of work and more hours of leisure. Vacations last longer because there is a higher value on family than finances.

Some of those European values are creeping into our American culture. That’s likely a good thing.

I sometimes wonder how God is going to correct our way of thinking. God disciplines behaviors that keep people from understanding his truth. Paul told the Philippians, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

Has God met your needs? Has God given you more than you would ever have asked or expected from him? If that’s the case, praise him from whom all blessings flow! We won’t ever have all we want, but that’s because we will always want more than God wants us to have.

Paul taught that we have found favor with God if our “needs” are met. I remember when, as a young married couple, we rejoiced to open our small U-Haul and unload everything we owned into our little duplex. It took about one hour for four of us to get all of it off the truck and inside the house. We opened those boxes and had everything we needed to live. Four-plus decades later, we have so much more. We praise God, not for the stuff we have accumulated, but for all the years that “stuff” represents.

Living with wisdom is a path to God’s blessings. Wisdom sheds the light of God’s perspective on everything in this world. Do your blessings meet your needs? If so, you have been abundantly blessed. Wisdom is knowing you have lived on God’s path of blessing. Joy and contentment are the blessings of knowing you have everything you need according to his riches in Christ Jesus.