Is Not Life More?

I don't know about you, but most days I feel deeply overwhelmed by my lack.

Lack of Time.
Lack of Money.
Lack of Motivation.
Lack of Relevance.
Lack of Power.
Lack of Charity.
Lack of Joy.
Lack of Love.
Lack of Energy.
Lack of Wonder.
Lack of Direction.
Lack of Creativity.
Lack of Mercy.
Lack of Open-heartedness.
Lack of Interest.
Lack of... furniture, butter, shorts, gas, beer, music, books, and a variety of other possessions.

So today as I was reading Matthew 6 (a stumbling block of understanding has been laid around this chapter for me, I am certain), I was struck anew by this question at the end of verse 25: "Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"

The first rule of reading the Bible is to remember to look at the context of a verse... I very much doubt that Jesus is saying that food and clothing don't matter (even good food, and beautiful clothes)... rather, he is saying that we ought not to worry and obsess over them, because God the Father lovingly and abundantly provides these things for even the birds and the flowers. Jesus very pointedly asks, if He does these things for birds and flowers, "will he not much more clothe you...?" (v.30) I point this out because I think the fact that God provides these things means we are not to despise them, but rather, to open our hands and ask for provision. To be human means to have real and legitimate needs related to our humanness.

Perhaps lack is an opportunity to see God's Fatherly provision and rejoice in it? To ask, not demand, for the generous giving and meeting of our needs, even of our wants and desires? (Though is not God famous for being something of an exacting giver? Generous to a fault, abundant in heady and dizzying ways, but never in an inappropriate excess and never anything that we do not in fact have need for in his own time? That is in and of itself something at which to marvel.) My point is, lack may be a means to better knowing God's love.

But perhaps lack, as the beatitudes of Matthew 5 seem to suggest, is also an opportunity to be awakened, to thirst anew for Christ (see esp. v. 6)? Maybe this is the point of my sudden awareness of lacking a great many things: doorknobs, closets, a place to store towels and linens, the power to heal, the money to give and repay, time to rest and to create, and quiet in which to think. It is the constant stubbed toe of being reminded that I cannot do for myself what needs to be done. That I live in a broken, fallen, painful, disappointing world. That the finality of my existence does not rest here in this day to day existence, full of wonder and beauty and good gifts as it is, but rather in a renewed, redeemed, restored world. Yet, I am constantly trying to fill up what I lack, often in ways that are unhealthy and satiate but do not nourish the body, soul, mind, etc.

Life is more... we get foretastes of the fullness of what life can and will be... but today, I'm still pondering the question. Still wondering what the answer might entail. Still trying to uncurl my clenched fists so that I can receive whatever the Lord desires to give.