Abundance

DEVOTION

GENESIS

ABUNDANCE

Gen 49:20

20 "Asher's food will be rich; he will provide delicacies fit for a king.

NIV

Another short and sweet blessing upon this son Asher. What are we to make of this? First we have to know from his history, which of course at the point of this blessing was his future, his portion of land included very fertile land. The tribe of Asher produced so much grain for bread, they actually supplied others with grain. They supplied others with oil and wine from their olives and vineyards, milk and butter from their pastures. All this is recorded in future accounts within Deuteronomy and 1 Kings. But what about us? How do we fit into this blessing? Surely we know that God provides everything for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Asher is certainly proof of this, but are we? Why does it seem some believers are provided with the richness of Asher’s, while others seem to struggle through life? Could we say that not all receive the same blessing just as each of the sons of Jacob did not receive the same blessing? Yet all scripture is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Therefore we should learn something from this blessing that applies to our life. Could we be bold enough to say the reason some believers do not receive the richness of this blessing is because they actually put more trust in their ability to produce wealth for themselves then trust in God. This goes directly to the parable Jesus taught about the foolish rich farmer who stored up all his grain, even building bigger barns, so he could sit back, retire and live the good life. He died that night. The point was because he was not rich toward God. He trusted in himself, he did not trust in God, He had more then he needed, he could have shared with others, instead he hoarded his own stuff. The tribe of Asher surely did not just give their produce away, they certainly sold, or bartered for profit.  But the point appears to be their abundance of produce was from the hand of God. This is how we need to see our life. All we have is from the hand of God. Yes we work, we have worked all our life, sometimes extremely hard, laboriously so, many hours. Yet all that we ever did was from the hand of God. He has lead us to everything we have ever done to provide food for our table and a roof over our head. We speak this from personal experience. We have trusted God for all things, maybe even to a fault. Some would accuse us of being too extreme in our interpretation of the scriptures. Some believers have told us, God helps those who help themselves, yet there is no such scripture, nor any scripture that could render that idea. It is evident if we trust God, he will bless us, and he will provide us with food that is rich, that he could provide us with goods fit for a king. He is our King. Could we say the abundance he provides for us is fit for himself? Would that fit right along with that parable, being rich toward God? Could we say the more we give toward God, the more he provides for us? But if we store up for ourselves, we will not see any more provisions from him. Interesting thought. Again, the tribe of Asher certainly worked the ground, they toiled to produce their crops. It is not about sitting back and waiting for God to drop everything into our lap. But it is about trusting God not ourselves. This was a blessing upon Asher, and it happened. God is always faithful to his word, but we need to believe his word to see his faithfulness fulfilled in our life. We need to believe to see his abundance.