6.14-God provides

6.14-
Our God Provides



One of the Jewish names for God is Yahweh Yireh.  Our God is a gracious provider.

Sometimes we have that feeling that we are simply too tired and weary to go on.  God provides.

Matthew 11.

²⁸ “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

My daughter has impressed me by making sure that her children as well as other children are provided for.  She has a son 19 and one almost 16 and I don’t believe they have ever worried about provisions for their food, shelter and clothing and medical treatment.  It has been a big goal for the that her boys feel they will have provided everything they need.  This has meant a few challenges because at the same time they were growing up she was getting her degree in accounting and even doing graduate work in that field.  The role of adults who know God is to provide for their children in the way that God provides for us.  God always provides for His children what they need and many times what they want.  This is who He is. 

Saturday morning I had breakfast with a group of men, one of whom had lost his mother  He had handled her death with God’s help, but determined to turn even her death into a blessing for one of his friends.  He bought a dinner and gifted them with it.  Then he took his mother’s television and gave it to his young friend who wanted one, but didn’t have one. God provides.

John 5.

5 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. ² Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda^[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. ³ Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. ^{[4] [b] 5} One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
⁸ Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, ¹⁰ and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”

Jesus provides a good question for a man and for us, “Do you want to get well?”

Jesus provides clear directions. “Pick up your mat and walk.”  Get busy carrying what has been carrying you.

I saw this verse from a book by Sarah Jakes Roberts, Don’t Settle for Safe

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

When you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

And the flame shall not consume you.

Isa. 43.1,2

As I scanned through this book I was reminded of several things that I needed to remind myself of today.

We are not promised a way around, but a way through.

There is no promise of safety in this world, but for a child of God there is a promise that we will not walk alone.

All the best things we want are just beyond being motivated by fear and moving to being motivated by love.

God is more concerned with our character than our comfort.

Stop trying to construct a life that you hope people will accept and embrace the life that God has in mind for you.

There is nothing you need that you have lost that God can’t restore to you.

Your problem is not that your expectations have been too high, it is that your expectations of God’s power have not been high enough.

Your ability to be calm in the face of storms is part of your power won through much struggle to overcome.

Larry Wishard

6.12.17