God asks you to give away everything and sends you out with nothing.
That’s how the kingdom of God works in power.
I can see you now tramping around precarious obstacles that were yesterday’s toys in the living room. Your brother Luke engineers his train through the mountain pass and down the steep precipice of his train set. You are the cutest of friends, but when you cross each other’s paths in these moments it’s trouble. You don’t want to give up your Ritz crackers. He doesn’t want to yield a train.
Daddy asks you to give him a cracker, but there’s only one last package.
God asks you to give up everything when your little eyes see nothing. Just this one cracker in your hand. That link of track in front of your train.
He asks you to bless others in power but doesn’t let you take security in anything but him along the journey:
Go announce to them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!
Don’t take any money in your money belts—no gold, silver, or even copper coins. Don’t carry a traveler’s bag with a change of clothes and sandals or even a walking stick. Matthew 10.5-9
Give as freely as you have received, although you have nothing with you on the journey. And who gets the credit? God.
What you don’t know while you clutch your last pack of crackers like your life depends on it is that Daddy has boxes and boxes of Ritz crackers unopened in the pantry. And bins of toys and trains in the other room.
That’s the secret of what God asks of you.
God has all the packs of Ritz crackers in the world in his pantry, but we get caught staring at the one in our hand. Can we trust God with it?
That’s why God sent the disciples out with nothing.
When we bless others with power — to heal, set free, and make new — he promises everything out of our nothing on the journey. In the process, we learn that all power and blessing comes from him, in the strange maturing, spiritual process of giving up everything when we have nothing at all.
Because he has everything. It’s how the kingdom of God works in power.
And how Daddy works when he asks you to give your brother just one.
Just your last pack of Ritz crackers.
This matches January 14 in the One Year Bible.