It. Costs. More.
I love to eat salads. A good spring mix, with strawberries, grapes, mandarin oranges and candied pecans with raspberry vinaigrette will never hurt anyone who really wants it!
The one thing I honestly don’t like is that the restaurants I get my favorite salad from don’t sell it year-round. So I decided that I was going to make the salad myself. After all, it’s not hard to make, right? I went to the store and I looked at the prices of the fruit it would cost to make the salad and I immediately got UPSET! I asked myself one question:
“Why does this fruit cost so much?!”
I heard the answer so sweetly whispered to my spirit immediately:
“Because you’re buying it out of season.”
Something I gathered from a simple trip to the grocery store, is there are some things that I may want in front of me and within the reach of my very hands. The question that I MUST ask myself is: “Do I want to pay the higher cost of it because I am not willing to wait for the season where it can be freely given to me?”
Let’s move past the trip to the grocery store and think about the wants and desires that we have within our own hearts and minds. There are things many of us want to accomplish and make sure we do before we give up the ghost. But just like fruit: there is a season of “growing” and there is a season of “plucking”. Just because something looks great and is the very thing that we’ve always wanted, dreamed about and desired greatly in our hearts, does not mean that it is time for us to grab it and run into the sunset. There may be some things that still need to be developed within us. While fruit is growing, the outside may look “ready” but if you cut it open, the inside could not match the “look” of the outside.
We cannot allow the want and desire for the gifts, talents and the blessings to overshadow the inner development that ensures the gifts and blessings are perfect and lacking nothing (James 1:4). We don’t want to let that which we are waiting on crush us when we get it because we did not wait until the appropriate season to line up with the appointed release. The true blessing is putting down the mindset that I had to cut across the field and say “I want this so bad that I’ll make it myself…”. The trouble with that is I would have had to pay double to make it myself than if I had waited for someone else to make it for me.
Since Jesus already paid the full price for us to live a life that we are destined to live then all we need to do is pray and ask for His strategic instructions, be obedient, receive His love and allow the blessings to come to me. The only part that involves me is being obedient. It does not include our own strength or power (Zech 4:6). If we do take it upon ourselves to create a “blessing” then with as much strength and effort as it took for us to create it then we will be held responsible to maintain it. It’s written that flesh shall not get any glory in the presence of the Lord (1 Cor 1:29-31). Cutting across the field may get the feeling of self-fulfillment, but that’s exactly what it is: a momentary euphoria that leads to delusions and high levels of false humility.
Going back to the very thing that we want and desire is in front of our faces…we have to ask if this is my season to reach out and grab it or is this a season to wait upon the Lord and truly allow Him to renew my strength for it (Is. 40:31; Ps 27:14). The Lord never dangles a carrot in front of us making us feel like we are running towards something we will never obtain. Yet He will continue to show us glimpses of what’s in our heart; the desires He put there in order to keep us focused and encouraged so we know we are doing well (Gal 6:9).
Proverbs 10:22 plainly says that “The blessings of the Lord maketh rich and adds no sorrow with it”. The cost of a real blessing of the Lord that will addeth no sorrow is a TRUE and honest “Yes Lord” that comes from a broken and contrite heart. Those are the ones that will allow you to preserve because you know the Lord loves you.
The Bottom line is:
IT COSTS WHAT IT COSTS….
Are you willing to pay it?
Are you willing to wait, THEN serve?
Or pay the additional costs to “cut across the field”?
~Tracy J
