How to Find Serenity: God’s Giving Is More Than Enough

Reverend Leo H. McCrary II

There is a level of faith we can reach where we would live unburdened and in serenity, as we rely on God’s giving. We must learn to be content in God’s giving rather than trying to go beyond it.

How to Find Serenity: God’s Giving Is More Than Enough

Shared on May 11, 2025

Introduction

I believe we can all reach a higher level of faith— a level of living unburdened and in serenity.  Throughout this series, I want to take a look at leveling up our faith.  The first place I will begin is by taking a look at being content.  The child of God must come to understand that God’s giving is more than enough; you don’t need more than God’s giving. 

Live Without Worrying

Jesus taught a very important lesson that is recorded in the gospels about how we ought to live if we truly desire to live unburdened and in serenity.  

In Luke 12:22, we are told that Jesus told His disciples, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on.”  We are often thinking ahead, considering what we’re going to eat or what we are going to wear.  In fact, what we eat or how we dress can quickly become a point of stress and worry that can burden us.

So, Jesus pointed to the ravens, a wild animal, and spoke of how the raven doesn’t sow nor reap to gather up food and store in a storehouse (Luke 12:24).  Wildlife doesn’t live with that stress or worry because, as Jesus said, “God feeds them.”

Jesus then pointed to the lilies to speak of their beauty.  Jesus said of the lilies that they neither toil nor spin, but Solomon, in all of his riches, wasn’t more beautiful than they (Luke 12:27).  Flowers don’t have to worry or work hard to be the most beautiful in the field because God clothes them.

Jesus shared this lesson with the disciples to show them that they ought to live like the flowers and the wildlife.  Jesus was teaching them that there is no reason that a child of the Lord should live in stress and worry when God cares for them.  There is no need to live constantly grinding and hustling when God cares for you!

Jesus expressed that life is more than always toiling and laboring to store up or for the vanity of making oneself pretty to the world!  If we truly desire to live the unburdened life in serenity, we must let go of the world’s vanity!  There is more to life than the grind and hustle for material happiness!  The constant grind and hustle cause us to miss out on what more there is to life.

What Is More to Life?

So, what is there that is more to life than the constant grind and hustle for material happiness?  The answer is serenity—  living unburdened; being content, calm, and at peace.  You see, when we can reach this level of living, then we can find joy in our living, while in this world!

Now, some of us may think that such a level of living is not possible.  However, Jesus makes it clear that we are of more value than the plants and the animals that God cares for (Luke 12:24, 28).  Since we are of more value than they, Jesus makes it clear that God will care for us even more!  God will provide for us to sustain us.  God will clothe us in His beauty.

Living in serenity is possible for us.  However, this serenity can only be found when one relies more on God’s giving.  So, we must choose to let go of our quest for “joy” that comes from material things.  

Authors of Our Own Anxiety

As novel an idea as it is to simply let go of the quest for material happiness, it is easier said than done.  Sadly, many of us just can’t let go of the endless quest for material happiness, which means we can’t stop stressing and worrying.  As Jesus pointed, we are the authors of our anxiety, stress, worry, and even depression.

How are we the authors of our anxiety, stress, and worry?  As Jesus said, we’re too busy trying to add a cubit to our stature (Luke 12:25)!

What does it mean that we’re too busy trying to add a cubit to our stature?  Well, our stature speaks of our height. At a certain age, we reach our full height as we stop growing, right?  So, you could say that at a certain age, our height is set in stone as there is nothing that can change our height.

Spiritually speaking, the Lord has blessed us and is still pouring out His blessings upon us.  We should be glad with God’s giving, right?  Yet, many find themselves unhappy with God’s giving.  In their unhappiness, they try to go beyond God’s giving and add to it through their constant grind and hustle.  Yes, there is an effort on the behalf of many to try and beat God’s giving!

Such an effort to beat God’s giving, to think that one can bless themselves better than God, is a foolish effort.  Such an effort does nothing but create stress and anxiety because there is no beating God’s giving!  Such an effort also shows a lack of understanding what a blessing is and what it means to be blessed by God.

This is a thought that one must truly take seriously if they are serious about living unburdened and in serenity.  Without understanding what a blessing of God is and what it means to be blessed, one will be fooled into being put in a box for the world’s idea of a blessing.  You see, the world’s idea of a blessing is that what one physically possesses is a blessing.

Now, living by the rules of the world, and by the rules of men who won’t permit you access to such blessings, is not my idea of being blessed.  To reach the higher levels of faith and living, we cannot let the world have rule over us.  So, we must come to understand God’s giving, what a blessing is, and what it means to be blessed.

A Lesson to Trust God’s Giving

1 Kings 17:8-16 shows us how God gives, what His blessings are like, and that God’s blessings go beyond material possessions.

This passage of scripture is a recording of a period after Elijah had pronounced the three and a half years’ drought throughout the land (1 Kgs. 17:1-2).  At the beginning of this drought, God sent Elijah to stay by a brook (1 Kgs. 17:5).  When the brook dried up, God sent Elijah to go and dwell elsewhere.

The widow of Zarephath

In 1 Kings 17:9, God instructed Elijah to go to Zarephath, which was a Phoenician city.  In this city, God told Elijah that a widow would provide for him.  

The widow of Zarephath will be a central figure for us in my message today.  You see, being a widow would imply that she wouldn’t have much in the way of material possessions.  You see, in ancient times, wives relied solely on their husbands to provide for them and their children.

Now, another curiosity was God seeing Elijah to a Phoenician widow.  As a Phoenician, it is highly likely that she did not know God, our God, and Elijah’s God intimately.  This widow was a gentile woman, which meant that she likely served and worshipped idols.  

So, why did God send Elijah to her?  Well, again, I point to the fact that she, a widow, was to provide for Elijah.  What this implies for us is that God had poured out a blessing upon her to be able to share with Elijah.

Doubt and a soured spirit

Now, in 1 Kings 17:10, we’re told that Elijah followed God’s instructions and arrived at Zarephath.  At the gate of the city, Elijah saw that there was a widow there who was gathering sticks.  So, he called out to her and asked her to get him a cup of water.  This is a scene that kind of reminds me of Jesus and the Samaritan woman as He sat at the well asking her to get Him some water.

As she had turned to go and get him a cup of water, we’re told that Elijah also asked her for a piece of bread (1 Kgs. 17:11).  Now, this caused the woman to pause, not because she didn’t want to give him a piece of bread but because she believed she couldn’t.

The woman turned and said to Elijah, “As the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and se, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die (1 Kgs. 17:12).”

This woman and her son, just like everyone else in that land, were in the midst of the severe drought.  Again, as a widow, she likely already had very little to give.  She believed herself to be at the end as she was running dry of food.  We know that God has blessed this widow to be able to provide for Elijah, but she was looking at what she had and didn’t see a blessing to be able to share.

How many of us have let what we think we lack sour our spirit?  How many of us begin to think we aren’t blessed because of the little we think we have?  

Jesus taught and promised that those who are faithful with few things, He will make a ruler over many things (Matt. 25:21,23).  I implore you today to never determine whether you are blessed or not by your material possessions.  Whether you have little or not, always move with the mindset that you are rich in God’s giving!

God makes a way

This was the lesson that Elijah was going to show the widow.  You see, Elijah was going to show her that she was blessed by God, though she may not have realized it.  As a child of God, this is how we ought to move as well!   In Romans 14:1, Paul encourages believers to receive one who is weak in the faith.  In Romans 15:1, Paul encourages one who is strong in faith to bear with the failings of the weak.

So, Elijah encouraged the widow not to fear nor worry about her lack, but rather, to continue as she had set out to do, while caring for him as well (1 Kgs. 17:13).  On her part, we’re told that the widow put her fear and worry to the side and moved, trusting Elijah’s words (1 Kgs. 17:15).  Let’s be cler about this, Elijah’s words were the words of God’s instructions to him.

We’re told that as she moved, her, Elijah, and her household ate for many days.  We’re told that the bin of flour did not run dry, nor did the jar of oil, according to the word of the Lord.  You see, this is how God’s giving – His blessings – work!  God’s giving never runs dry!  You don’t have to work overtime to receive from the Lord!

You see, Elijah and the widow were living in the midst of a severe drought, but they weren’t living in need!  Elijah wasn’t working a 9-to-5!  Yet, though they were living in a rough time, they were living in serenity!

You see, this is also how the blessings of the Lord work:  just when you think you’re in trouble, God makes a way.  Yes, problem after problem arises and you begin to think you can’t make it, but then weeks go by and you see that you somehow made it!  When it seems like everything is breaking down around you, and you don’t know how you’re going to pay for it, but then a way is made.

You see, serenity is in God’s providence!  Serenity is found by staying within God’s providence, rather than trying to go beyond it.  There is no need to ever go beyond God’s giving because what He gives is more than enough to sustain you!  

Finding Serenity in the Little Things

Many of us fail to see that God has already blessed us, just as He had done for the widow.  Now, why is that the case?  Why do we fail to realize that we are already blessed?

You see, the blessing is often seen in the little things, rather than in the extravagant.  Yet, as Elijah was when He went to Horeb, we are often trying to find God and His blessings in the extravagant.  God showed Elijah that He is in that which we don’t look for or seek to observe.  As Paul said, the Lord will use the foolish things and the weak things to confound and put to shame the wise and mighty (1 Cor. 1:27).

When we recognize the “little things”, we can rejoice in them and begin to reach higher levels of faith.  I want you to consider the “little things” that God does for you daily that you may take for granted.  For example, being able to swing our legs out of the bed every morning and rise to our feet is truly a wonderful blessing.  The fact that we have food on the table to eat is truly a wonderful blessing.

 I implore you to consider how you are continuing to make it in all of what we have gone through in our lifetimes.  We are enduring today because God continues to provide for us and sustain us.  So, let us learn to appreciate God’s giving as it is more than enough to sustain you!  

When you can learn to appreciate that God is going to sustain you through whatever season you may be in at the moment, you can live unburdened, stress-free, and with no anxiety.  This is what it takes for us to begin to reach for the higher levels of faith and the higher levels of living.