I woke up last week one day thinking about riches. Specifically, what are they really? What are they to me, but more importantly, what are God’s riches? I immediately found myself thinking about how God defines riches versus how we often think of them ourselves.

No doubt current circumstances of Covid-19 and re-formatting of day to day life happenings played a role in my mental wonderings here. Still, I could feel the Lord nudging me along and keeping me on topic.

To state the obvious, nearly everything the world (including we Christians at times) has placed trust, value, and importance on, have all been shaken or completely uprooted. The emblems of security, status, entertainment and even science and medical advancement seem to all be in question and leaving many to ask, how important was all this stuff we thought we needed or believed we could count on? How much does it matter?

Make no mistake, jobs matter, certainly being able to pay bills matters, having a roof over ones head matters, being in good health, social gatherings, even entertainment in that it uplifts and hopefully draws us into positive fellowship and engagement, matters. But do they matter the most? Do these things bring us strength, do they provide us our peace of mind? Do they give us the confidence that we have enough, or that we are enough in this life? Do they give us assurance in the decisions we make? If they do, we might have a problem. So what does matter most, what are real “riches”? Here’s what I felt the Lord brought to me.

LOVE | JOY | GRACE | PEACE | WISDOM | FAITH | HOPE

Along with these was the thought that this is the real wealth and provision we should seek to build and “store up”. Because these are the very things that we need when we’re faced with struggles.

A couple scriptures formulated while I was pondering all this:

Matthew 6:19-21 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves [material] treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal; ²¹ for where your treasure is, there your heart [your wishes, your desires; that on which your life centers] will be also.

Psalm 37:4 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁴ Delight yourself in the Lord, And He will give you the desires and petitions of your heart.

I suddenly understood (perhaps re-understood) that the measure to which we spend time with the Father understanding, gathering, and storing up all the goodness of His intention toward us, the greater equipped we are to deal with whatever this life throws at us.

I couldn’t help but qualify this “delight yourself” scripture. This probably isn’t relatable; (wink) but I used to look at this and wonder “how do I delight myself in the Lord so I can get the things I want?”… Ugh, I probably still do look at it like that sometimes. Oops!

But here’s the thing, if we are truly delighting ourselves in the Lord, we’re content with all that GOD is and all that God wants, which leaves us open, to let God show us the real desires and petitions of our heart. AND, bonus, He makes them possible. Because our attention shifts away from self, so do our intentions, which means our desires are open to be shaped and aligned by God.

Saying this makes sense but I’ve always struggled with the word “delight” and getting to the conclusion I made in the previous paragraph. That “delight” somehow means “opening up to being shaped” … guess what… This week in an article by Annette Capps she used this same Psalm 37:4 and I learned this: the word “Delight” from this scripture in Hebrew is “anag” which means “pliable or delicate” or in a modern term – flexible. “Coincidence” right?! Yeah I didn’t think so either. This really helped me in lining this up in my head to makes sense and connect it to the riches I felt the Lord was pointing me to.

LOVE | JOY | GRACE | PEACE | WISDOM | FAITH | HOPE

I still wasn’t sure this was all connected but what I did know was/is that this is about the intentions of our heart and about where we are aligning our trust and placing our value. It was in this frame of mind that I read 1 Kings 3:9-11, and it seemed the Lord was smacking me in the face with it and driving that very point home.

1 Kings 3:9-12 Amplified Bible (AMP)

⁹ So give Your servant an understanding mind and a hearing heart [with which] to judge Your people, so that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge and rule this great people of Yours?” ¹⁰ Now it pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing. ¹¹ God said to him, “Because you have asked this and have not asked for yourself a long life nor for wealth, nor for the lives of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to recognize justice, ¹² behold, I have done as you asked. I have given you a wise and discerning heart (mind), so that no one before you was your equal, nor shall anyone equal to you arise after you.

Wow, that was it! What are we asking for from our Heavenly Father?! Are we delighted in God; are we flexible to His way? Solomon knew God’s goodness and loving kindness, he trusted in that, and he asked for what was good and right and what he truly needed, and the Lord provided it because it was in alignment with His own will and purposes.

We’re not always going to get this right, Solomon certainly didn’t, we’re going to shift intentions and get not so pliable sometimes. But if we’re open to being reminded of what matters, we’ll keep building those riches… like a Holy Spirit 401K with an endless reserve. J

LOVE | JOY | GRACE | PEACE | WISDOM | FAITH | HOPE

So be encourage, stay in communion with Christ, receiving these gifts, these are the riches we ALWAYS need; regardless of, or sometimes because of, the circumstance we find ourselves in. None of this should trivialize or cover over with spirituality the very real struggles and hardships being faced by many right now. On the contrary, these treasures translated directly into the tangible actions we are directed to take in a time such as this.

Over the week I have continued looking over scriptures to further open this up in my own heart. Digging in, I found encouragement by the abundance of instruction, inspiration and reassurance in both New and Old Testament scripture, and even in Christ’s own Words, spelling out what matters most. That setting our hearts and minds in God’s direction is how we grow in the wealth of His Kingdom. I’ll leave these for you in case you’d like to explore and hopefully be encouraged by them yourself as well.

Blessing to you all today.

Matthew 6:31-33 (NLT)

Colossians 3:1 (AMP)

Colossians 3:14-16 (AMP)

Ephesians 3:16-18 (AMP)

Luke 12:16-34 (NKJV)

Nehemiah 8:10-17 (NIV)

2 Corinthians 4:5-10 (NLT)

Isaiah 40:29-31 (AMP)

Proverbs 3:5-6 (AMP)

Psalm 28:6-7 (AMP)

Colossians 2:2-3 (AMP)

1 John 4:15-21 (NKJV)

John 15:9-12 (AMP)

Philippians 4:5-8 (AMP)

Luke 18:22 (NKJV)