Not all we wish, not all that we may think pleasant or desirable

(George Everard, "Follow the Leader!" 1882)

"My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus!" Philippians 4:19

We have here the promise that every possible need will be provided for. The Lord of earth and Heaven has such boundless treasures at His command, that it is impossible that we can expect too much. Not all we wish, not all that we may think pleasant or desirable - but all that the only-wise God discerns to be truly needful and profitable for us - that will He give.

The supply assured to the believer, comprises that which is needful for all that concerns our present life - and all that is essential for the support and growth of spiritual life in the soul.

As to this present life, God supplies our needs. And yet by withholding much that is for our comfort, He humbles and proves His children. He often keeps them on very slender fare!

What then have the people of God a right to expect?

Sometimes He may bestow a rich abundance of temporal blessings. He did so in the case of Job, and Abraham, and Joseph, and Solomon, and many others.

Still more frequently He will give His children amply enough for their daily need. He blesses their basket and their store. He gives a sufficiency, so that they can live a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty.

Yet sometimes it is otherwise. He is training His children, and He puts them in the school of affliction. He sends them thorns and briars, and sharp trials. And this often in the shape of need, or insufficient means for meeting the requirements of themselves or their families.

Ah, do not repine if this is so! There is a purpose beneath it. There is divine love, though there is the lack of food or money.

"Behind a frowning Providence
 He hides a smiling face!"

A soldier in a foreign campaign does not murmur because he has to rough it, and perhaps for many a week has coarse and insufficient fare. Nor should you be surprised if this is your case. Now is the conflict; by-and-by the crown will be won, and you will be at rest in your Father's house!

"My God shall supply all your needs." This goes far beyond temporal blessings. It opens wide to us the treasury of divine grace - it tells me to go in and take all that my soul desires.

You may imagine a cabinet with fifty or a hundred drawers and each of these labeled with some valuable article - and you are permitted to go in and open each drawer and take out what you will. It is so in God's house. Christ is the Treasury of all spiritual gifts and graces. In Him are found wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, peace, power, preserving grace, restoring grace, consolation in sorrow, and effectual help and support in every season of adversity. And by faith and prayer, we are to go continually, and ask and receive abundantly, according to our need.

Do not limit God's free and rich supply of grace in Christ by the thought of your own demerits. It is not on account of any works or worthiness of yours - but for the sake of Christ's work and Christ's worthiness, that God is ever willing to bestow on you all needful grace.

"The LORD gives grace and glory. No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly!" Psalm 84:11

"God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work." 2 Corinthians 9:8