Enjoying God's Provision

During the Great Depression, a couple with three children felt God's calling to serve as missionaries in Africa. They had no money to finance a move to the mission field, but they did own their own small home. If they could sell it, they would have the money they needed...but who would buy it? The economy was at an all-time low and people did not have the money to buy real estate. But they put their house on the market, trustingGod for a miracle.

One evening as the family was on their knees, once again asking God for the sale of their home, He spoke to a woman across town, telling her to buy their home. She got on a bus, clutching her purse in her hands, and rode over to their house. When she arrived, she saw the family get up off their knees, and she rang the doorbell. "God has told me to buy your house so you can go to Africa." The lady drew money from her purse and made a down payment. The family was thrilled with God's provision! With the money from the sale of their home, they had the means to go to the mission field. 

The daughter was sixteen when her parents moved to Africa. After a few years, she returned to the United States to attend Biola College. While there, she met a handsome young tennis champion who had played against well-known tennis players. The two fell in love and were married. Soon after the wedding, the young woman discovered that the woman who had purchased her parents' home, enabling them to travel to Africa, was her new husband's great Aunt!

Upon graduation from college, the newlyweds also moved to Arica where they worked as missionaries for fifty-two years. During those years of ministry, they lost their household several times due to major theft, political turmoil, and the elements. All their wedding gifts and most of their treasures were taken from them. When it came time for them to leave Africa, they had little to call their own, and retirement in the United States seemed daunting. It would have been easy to worry about where they would live and how they would eat. But they didn't worry. God had been providing for them all through their lives. He would again.

Shortly before they were scheduled to leave Africa and retire, word came that the great Aunt had willed the couple the very house that had been sold to provide for her parents first trip to Africa! It was completely furnished, down to the linens, china, and crystal! That couple was my parents. 

When they arrived in the United States after all those years, possessing only the suitcases in their hands, they returned to the same house that my grandparents had sold when my mother was sixteen years old. God provided for my grandparents to go to Africa, and many years later, for my parents upon their return. Our God is Yahweh-Jireh, the Lord Who Provides.

Our God is Yahweh-Jireh, the Lord Who Provides...All that we experience from the hand of God is a free gift. The Bible calls it grace – undeserved favor.

GRACE TO BECOME LIKE HIM

The God you worship is Yahweh-Jireh, the God who, in eternity, sees and provides. He declares, "Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you" (Isaiah 46:4). In Romans 8:32-33, we are told, "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?" Those promises are for you.

All that we experience from the hand of God is a free gift. The Bible calls it grace – undeserved favor.

PLUGGING THE HOLES

I knew all the facts about grace. I knew that God is Yahweh-Jireh, the Lord who provides. But those facts didn't seem to affect the core of my being. The godly people around me seemed to be deeply affected by the truth of God's provision, so why wasn't I? In the book of Deuteronomy, God's children were repeatedly called to "remember." They were to remember where they had come from, what God had given them, and what He had done for them. I felt that God was also calling me to remember. He wanted me to remember all He had done for me. But how could I remember if I hadn't even noticed? 

I went to the image of my life being like a gift box. Although I was learning to see each day as a new gift from God, my box was really more like a sieve. I was allowing God's provision to flow through my life and my day without even stopping to take notice. If I notice and remember what God has done, I will see the pattern of God's work in my life. I decided that I would focus on what is known as "common grace." Common grace is what we experience in the normal things of life. When I chose to dwell on the normal, daily things that God provided for my family and me, I began also to appreciate His generous hand in spiritual areas of my life. 

DEVELOPING HOLY HABITS

1.  Ask God to Show You His Daily Gifts

When I open my gift of today I intentionally notice that I have been given a good, comfortable bed and clean sheets. The carpet to step onto and the bathroom with hot and cold water are all normal things that God provides. We can cultivate an awareness of His gifts, and a gratitude for them, by asking Him to show them to us. 

2.  Thank Him Every Day

For common grace, breathing deeply, seeing color, having a hand with five individually-functioning fingers, being able to swallow without pain. For temporal provision; shoes, a warm coat; glasses to wear when you're fifty and your arms aren't long enough to stretch to the point where you can read the fine print. For special grace in salvation. For special grace needed to become godly.

3.  Tell God What You Need

Pray about your needs. There is nothing too trivial to talk to God about. If it's important to you, it's important to Him. At particularly needy times in my life, I have taken a whole sheet in my notebook and titled it, "What do you want Me to do for You?" Then I write down the longings of my heart as a prayer before God. Over it all, I write, "Not my will, but Yours be done." Our God, Yahweh-Jireh, wants you to share your heart's desire with Him.

Take this to heart: God is the Lord who provides. He has provided for your spiritual well-being:  you can freely enter into God's presence no matter what the circumstances. His provision is abundant for the need of the moment. He provides for you practically:  you can ask Him to meet your financial needs, your soul's longings, whatever lies within our heart. God provided what Elijah needed and not what he asked for. The same is true for us. When we ask, we must recognize that we can trust that He will send what we need. God knows best what to provide.

Do you see God's provision in your life? Ask Him to tune your heart to His provision. He is working. When you are alive to Yahweh-Jireh's residence in you, each day is filled with assurance and confidence. He, Himself, will provide for you, for every aspect of your life, moment by moment. 

~ By Mimi Wilson