Time went on. One baby became two and two became three. The daughter and her husband decided that a family of five simply couldn’t survive the parameters of their starter home. They began searching neighborhood after neighborhood until they found the perfect place to settle in. This, they decided, would be their forever home. They sold the old place and moved into the new. Between the two, they held a giant yard sale in which they sold all their old furniture – the stuff with baby stains and all that. The money earned – combined with their savings – allowed them to buy only the basics: bedroom and family room furniture.

The pastor/father and his wife (her mother) came to the daughter’s new home one evening for dinner. Of course they were most anxious to see the house. Dad asked his daughter about the financial arrangements they’d made. “Oh,” she said, “we just scrimped and saved and used the equity from the sale of the other house. We had enough.”

Her father said nothing in return but he noticed the living and dining rooms were devoid of furniture. Not a picture, not a curtain, and not a throw rug could be found anywhere.

Another few years went by. With the children in their “growing up years,” most of their daddy’s salary went to providing for their needs.

And their wants.

Once again, the pastor/father and his wife were invited –as they often were – for dinner. In the course of the evening, the daughter casually mentioned to her pastor/father that the kids would be grown before she and her husband could afford to fully furnish the house or even to decorate the way she’d like.

Dad cleared his throat and gently reminded his daughter that he had money set aside for her; that it had been there for her all along. All she had to do was ask for it.

The daughter then asked for it. Dad said he’d transfer the money from the savings account to their checking account the following day. Two days later he received a phone call from his astonished daughter. She had no idea of the amount of money her father had been holding on to for all those years. All that money which was at her disposal, if only she asked.

Be Magnified

“I have made you too small in my eyes,” we sing, when we sing Be Magnified, by Lynn DeShazo.

We think that God cannot help us. Cannot provide for our needs. Sometimes we think God cannot hear us, even.

But within the stanzas and chorus of this contemporary hymn, we remind ourselves that God is more than able to meet our needs and our wants. His storehouse is full to overflowing.

But we have not because we ask not.

We ask not because we don’t believe in the magnitude of the one before whom we lay our petitions.