Claim What is Yours!

     Last Friday afternoon, I left work with a simple to-do list in my mind.  I needed to go to the bank and cash a check, buy some gasoline, go grocery shopping and then meet my son and his wife to pick up the baby so they could have a “date night”.  I completed my checklist and drove home.  The weekend went as planned with lots of baby giggles, a nice visit with my son and daughter-in-law, and church on Sunday.

     Then came Monday and a regular work day.  At the end of the day, as I left work, I called my husband as I often do.  Because he knows that I often fail to notice my gas gauge and not knowing that I’d put $30 in the tank on Friday, he asked me to check to see how much gas I had.  I laughed at his concern and told him I had plenty of gas, but when I turned the key in the van and the dashboard lit up, the needle showed the tank was on empty.  That was impossible!  I’d only driven about 15 miles on that $30 and once I got home on Friday the van had not left the house.  I called my husband back and we talked about whether the gas tank could be leaking or whether gas could have been siphoned from the tank.  Regardless of the mystery of the missing gasoline, I was running on fumes, so I stopped and put a few dollars' worth of gas in the tank.

     Driving home, I replayed the events of Friday afternoon in my mind, mentally retracing my steps.  I know I went to the bank because the rest of the cash was in my purse.  I remembered paying for the gas, BUT I did not remember actually pumping the gas. In a hurry to check off all my tasks and get my hands on that sweet baby, I’d simply paid for the gas, walked out and started the van and gone off to the grocery store. I guess I'd had a senior moment and a blond moment at the same time! Sheepishly, I called the gas station and asked if they had any record of someone paying for gas and then not pumping it.  Of course, they did, and they were good enough to allow me to come back and top off my gas tank.

     I think many of us struggle through life like that.  We find ourselves lacking something that we thought we had.  We’re confused as to why things in our lives seem to be missing. We review the events in our lives, wondering where we went wrong and trying to figure out why things are not working out the way we thought they would.  Could it be as simple as the fact that we have become distracted and not claimed the things in our lives for which the price has already been paid?

What do you need today? Salvation? – paid for.  Deliverance? – paid for. Provision? – paid for. Peace? – paid for. Wisdom? – paid for.  The list is infinite.  All that we need or will ever need has been purchased for us by Jesus.  It may not always come on your terms or in your timing, but it is all there.  Don’t let the enemy distract you and keep you from claiming what is already yours.