owning the cattle on a thousand hills….

I drove home from teaching piano lessons last Monday night with  a couple hundred dollars worth of frozen grass-fed beef in my trunk.  It took the form of about 20 lbs of ground hamburger, several different roast cuts and four sirloin steaks.  All in all it was about three grocery bags full and was a completely unexpected gift from the mother of my piano students. 

We’ve not really been eating much meat.  Lately I’ve been exploring what beans and tofu can do for our shrinking grocery budget.  Not to get all dismal and all, but Jonathan and I feel the weight of our needs pushing up against our limited resources on a regular basis.   I’m starting to see that money has been much more in my little heart than a economic currency.

So, when push comes to shove,  and I find myself wandering down the grocery isle, asking ridiculous questions like, what is more important to buy this week? Baby wipes or laundry detergent?  I feel a different pushing and shoving.  So much in me hangs on my money.  You either have  MONEY or you don’t.   With money, you are either SAFE or you are not; you are either IN CONTROL or not.  Yes, the lack of money is interfering with things I have up until now thought to be my rights--my safety(new tires), my comfort (heat/air conditioning), my relaxation(eating out, movies), my rest(babysitters), my health (physical therapy).  But even more telling, the lack of  these things in my life is also interfering with my ability to give, to be kind and patient, and to love.  And that my friends, is convicting!

I’m pretty sure there is not a place in the Bible where God says, “Love your neighbor as yourself when you feel safe, comfortable, well-rested and relaxed.  Otherwise, you just go ahead and feel free to cuss him out for the annoying inconvenience that he is, honey.”

I guess my point is this:  We are limited. Finite.  And God made us this way.  He knows.  He created us with an end to our strength, our patience, our optimism, our hope.  He created us to need him—to find our hope in his infinite strength, patience, and love.  He is asking us to trust his care for us.  Yet, he also commands us to trust and obey regardless of our circumstances.   But I am much more inclined to trust and obey my bank account—meaning I feel much safer and much more generous with my time and patience when my bank account high than when it is low. 

I think I have a case of misplaced trust. 

Although I’ve known this, I’ve not known this like I know it now.  And most days, I still don’t know it as I should.  But somehow not having enough, has forced me to to notice and admit--in a way I have never before--that I am not enough.

And then, just as my finite-ness begins to occlude my hope and my faith and my love, God (in his infinite kindness) fills my trunk with frozen meat.  And I start to remember (like my own little chapter 11 of Hebrews)—

Just as we wonder how we will seat two small children at our table for meals with only one highchair/booster, I see a beautiful wooden highchair out by the dumpster in the alley.  It barely fits in my trunk, but looks beautiful in our dining room.

Just as we are about to burnout, we are flown to Florida for a two-week vacation in the middle of January.

Just as we notice we can’t afford tuition this term, a friend e-mails us out of the blue and asks to help move us along in our seminary career.

And just as we have resigned ourselves to never eating a good steak again, God sends me home with a trunkful of grass-fed, organic beef. 

For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.

Psalm 50:10-12

Kind’a makes you want to giggle, doesn’t it?   That freezer full of meat is such a silly, bloody love note, isn’t it?