Believers should take time every day to reflect on what God has done for us through the Lord Jesus Christ. We should be so incredibly thankful that He has saved us, and not only this, He has chosen us to be His sons and daughters. Romans 8:29(NLT) tells us, “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” Isn’t this too wonderful for words?! You see, it’s great when we have relationships with people that really like us and want to be in our company. This makes us feel that someone really gets who we are. It validates our uniqueness and makes us feel valued and appreciated. Well our magnificent Heavenly Father loves us infinitely more than any friend can. He chose us to be a part of His family, and He desires to validate the very core of who we are through His Son, Jesus Christ. One of the most beautiful ways He does this is by revealing very intimately that He can do for us what no other can.
I don’t need to tell you that life can be very challenging. There are times when it feels as though everything is falling apart. We can go through seasons that are extremely hard on us, and they sometimes last much longer than any of us would like. During these seasons, we call on the familiar as a way of asking and trusting in God’s aid, but the familiar is not always where God wants us to go, and it will not be where He is taking us.
As we become mature Christians, we learn the spiritual practice of prayer as a way of communicating with Heavenly Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. We also learn to operate by faith. As we begin to renew our minds to God’s Word, we put an end to speaking negative confessions, and we start naming and claiming the goodness of God’s blessing and power over our lives. We’ve learned how to do this and it’s awesome! But it is just the beginning. It’s a tier of many tiers as we journey forward in Christ. There is so much more to having intimacy with God and He desires to show us.
Our relationship with Him develops as our trust in Him grows. But sometimes in a wilderness experience, when we feel we desperately need to hear from Him, for a period it can seem as if God isn’t hearing us. This is the place where the door to the familiar is closed, and the one to the unfamiliar is opened. It can be an extremely uncomfortable place.
Abraham is called the father of our believing because he was fully persuaded that what God said in His Word that He would do He is also able and willing to perform. God could count on Abraham to get some things done for the Kingdom, NOT because he was perfect, but because Abraham proved himself to be obedient. He trusted God. When God said, ‘go left’, Abraham would go left. He followed God’s directives because He had faith in Him.
Genesis 12:1(NLT) tells us, “The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.” Abraham, called Abram before God changed his name, received the directive of the Lord to leave the place he had called home. This was his biological father’s residence, and all Abraham’s relatives lived close by. It was a very familiar place, and one can imagine that Abraham would like to have stayed with his father and relatives, but God had another plan. Rather than being comfortable and holding tightly to what he knew, Abraham was obedient to God’s directive and left the comfort of a place he had called home.
In familiar territory, around those who love and nurture us, we are very comfortable. They know us to be a certain type of person, and our vision can become molded by the expectations of sameness. This may be standard for the unbelieving world, but it can’t be for God’s sons and daughters. There are some things about who you used to be that you don’t need to be reminded about. There are some habits and attitudes that must be left behind. So, the doors that used to be open are now closed, and God has purposely ensured that your only way forward is to walk through new doors. Your only way forward is to trust Him beyond any level that you’ve trusted Him before. You must lean totally on Him as Your Provider.
God is our Source! He is our sufficiency, and we must never doubt this for a moment. Many of us make the mistake of thinking that a person is our everything, or that our job or money is the source of our provision. 2Corinthians 3:5(NKJV) tells us, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.” You and I are conduits of God’s love. He gives to us and we give to others. So just as others are blessed through us, Heavenly Father has unlimited resources to deliver blessings to His people, but rest assured He is the Source of every blessing in the earth.
Heavenly Father will never cease to provide for His people. He is and will forever be our provision. But we can’t afford to become stale in our expectations and intimacy with Him. The way we came into a thing cannot always be the way we go out. There are times when old habit patterns must be eradicated, and they must be vamoosed to such a degree that they are no longer remembered. The familiar practices we hold so dear must be driven and motivated by a deeper connection to God through faith, and our expectations about what He can and will do for us cannot be stifled by a limited vision of what is possible. When God does a new thing, some old things must fall off. No matter how uncomfortable, we must have the faith and confidence to let them go, and we must get excited. He’s doing a new thing in our lives, and the less we know about the details the better. Only He can receive all the glory for providing our way to victory, for He can do for us what no other can do.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“God Is Your Provider”, written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2019. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.