God, before I log on to I look again at my bank account, I just declare that You will provide for me. You will not let me starve, unless of course starvation is your provision for me—and that would be quite an interesting kind of provision, but it would be a good kind, likely very exciting and praiseworthy on the flipside of mortality.
Jesus, if I didn’t have your promises, I don’t see how I could keep from being a slave to work. I would have to keep laboring under that master just to get a little security – and especially if I had a wife and kids, I would need to purchase more security, and would serve him more strenuously. I see how many men don’t do justice to their families in their attempt to provide for them—they are oppressed by the combination of insecurity and the manly motivation to provide.
Jesus, the cattle on a 1,000 hills, the funds in 1,000 investments are owned by you. You have ways that surpass understanding. You are freakin’ GOD for crying out loud. Surely you can provide without stress, and you are all powerful and all-wealthy.
I ask not for comfort, per se, or any particular thing. You can, and will, and ought to, and must, decide the particulars. You alone know what “provision” means for me. Perhaps that means my wife and I have to eat soup and saltines for a few months, or years. Perhaps it means that I have to work two jobs to make ends meet. Perhaps it means that we will live in a shoddy apartment. Perhaps it means even less. Certainly there are many of your beloved who are without homes or food many nights. Are there children of yours who starve to death? Some are locked in jails, some undergo famines in distant lands, some are beset by poor health – failing eyesight, rotting teeth, back pains, fevers, MS, arthritis, cancer, and worse. Some are financially stripped by medical bills.
And there are those servants of yours whose parents die before their eyes, and whose newlywed spouses die or are beset by debilitating disease months after marriage. Some see their families burned in a house fire, some experience miscarriages, and some watch their newborns or five-year-olds breathe slower and slower in a hospital bed. Some birth a child with Down’s Syndrome and their time and energy must be given to taking care of that child. (Oh God, you know that a disabled child would devastate me, at least for a split moment. All glory to you!) Halleluiah, praise the one, risen Son of God.
God, my money may be all spent just getting by. I may never have the chance to save up and get a reserve for “rainy days.” My whole life it may rain.
I may be oppressed by corrupt insurance agencies, greedy doctors, unjust laws, unjust judges, all kinds of men who are desperate and ruthless in defending their piece of the carcass which entitles them to the survival of the fittest, a little of that necessity, “security.”
But in all this, I say, “Listen, O my soul, God With Us will provide for us, for me and for my loved ones; he will take care of us, he will see us through. Rest, soul, and abide in trust in your master, who is powerful and who loves you.”
‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.’– Exodus 6:6
Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.
– Galatians 3:7Jehovah Jireh
Ben Taylor 