A comment was left on a devotional penned back in 2015, titled “want vs. need,” about the lame man at the gate called Beautiful. You know the story, he asked for alms but instead Peter said in Acts 3:6, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” The commenter was upset because she thought I was insinuating God will only give us what we need and not what we want. Please understand, I am never offended when someone corrects me or gives their opinions and I pray she isn’t by my clarification. She said, “There is nothing wrong with wanting something, even a mansion or a Ferrari!” Although I agree with this statement, I have to wonder what good would it do for God to give me a Ferrari when I’m living in a two bedroom apartment with three children, working 4 part-time jobs and about to lose my mind simply because I want it? Yea, I may ride clean but I’m hungry, angry and tired. Instead God will give me what I need which may be a Honda until the time comes for Him to upgrade me. Yes, God will absolutely give us what we need and want, I am a living witness but sometimes we aren’t ready to handle what it is we think we want at the time of our ask.
With this lame man; everyday somebody had to bring him to the gate, lay him there where he’d spend all day begging, come and pick him up, take him home; where he probably lived with somebody else because he couldn’t care for himself. He’d have to wait until they cleaned him, dressed/undressed him and fed him. Sure, Peter and John could have given him with what he wanted but he would have been back the next day, begging again. Instead, they blessed him with what he needed and it changed his life. Acts 3:8 shares, “And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.” And get this, because Peter and John granted his need, it allowed those around, who didn’t believe, to witness the very thing Jesus had been preaching about before His crucifixion. This is why Peter says in Acts 3:15-16, “You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact! Through faith in the name of Jesus, this man was healed–and you know how crippled he was before. Faith in Jesus’ name has healed him before your very eyes.” I said it in 2015 and I will say it again, sometimes you might not get what you want but you’ll get what you need. Not saying God isn’t capable of supplying both but it means God loves us enough to say, not now or even, here’s something better.
Lakisha, the Author 