Limits

            A friend just ended up with two little girls whose mother passed away. Being the only family available, she and her husband opened their heart and home to these darling cherubs. Their own children are mostly grown with the youngest finishing high school and the oldest in college, so of course she has none of the baby things needed when littles are around. It is touching to see how people have been responding with clothes and toys and food.

            I was praying about how I could be of help, and I knew right away that I was to pay for daycare for a few months. Knowing this would be rather costly was not even a concern as I am currently stepping into how to be a financial blessing to people, even though my own cash flow is not as I would like it. I figured the problem wasn’t mine to worry about where the funds would come from. I messaged her and her husband to let them know that their daycare expenses would be taken care of for two months. Of course they were thankful, but also shocked.

            The next day, my friend was posting on Facebook about how worried she was about paying for daycare. I immediately began to private message her about my promise that I’d already made to pay the cost for two months or until she got the assistance for which the girls would most likely be eligible. She said, “It’s too much to ask.”

            My response to her was that she didn’t ask. I also quoted to them something I recently heard, “God’s will is God’s bill.”

I have still been troubled by this all day. She sought prayer over social media, yet when prayers were answered, limits were added. I am sad, and rather surprised about the fact that it is often so hard for people to allow God’s love and blessings to flow without adding our own boundaries. Ephesians tells us that He will do “exceeding, abundantly above all that [we] can ask or think,” and yet here was my friend already deciding an amount within her comfort level in receiving from a gift that was definitely well-below what God wanted for her situation.

How many times do we do that? We ask for God’s divine intervention, and when He wants to lavish His amazing grace and favor, we say, “Oh, no! That’s too much!” I’m sure He is laughing at us every time we do that, but I also am sure He is hoping we will learn to ask, expectantly, with arms open-wide to receive all that He wants to pour into us.

I will continue to lift my friend in prayer as she and her family learn to receive God’s blessings. It certainly is a good lesson for me as well!