God will supply your needs

With the world on lock down, many jobs have been shut down and businesses closed due to  major financial losses. Some families have lost their bread winners to the deadly virus.  People all over the world are watching their livelihood crush and burn right before their eyes with no solution in sight as the deadly virus continues to ravish lives and cause so much trauma in the world. For people whose livelihood and source of provision has been cut off because of this lock down, the fear of the future is very real.  I empathise with you if you are in this situation and are reading this blog. My sincere prayer is that you will see the gold in this difficult time.

Four years ago, my husband and i packed and moved to another country to pursue  doctorate studies, and fulfil a vision God had laid on our heart. With much enthusiasm, we both resigned our jobs and left everything we had known to go to the unknown. It was our ‘Abraham’ moment:  Now the Lord said to Abram: ”Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house and go to a land that I will show you. (Genesis 12:1). The land in our case has the highest cost of living in the world.  Our savings run out in two weeks and we quickly realised that God had positioned us to learn Him as the Lord our Provider. It has been an amazing journey experiencing God provide each and every need over and above what we could have imagined. I have learnt a few things in trusting God to be the source for our family that will encourage you to trust Him if provision as you have known it has been affected in this season. 

Key Lessons.

1. God is the Source of all our needs.  Your job , business, savings are only channels he uses to provide for you. God has many channels He can use to provide for us. The channel changes from season to season but the source remains God. Sadly society and culture has conditioned us to invest and trust the channels God chooses to provide for us more than  Him as our source of provision.  In this season, i urge you to note the different channels He will be using to provide for you.

In 1 Kings 17, the prophet Elijah proclaims a drought for three years. However in this time, we see the Lord providing for the prophet.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. ⁴ And it will be that you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” So he went and did according to the word of the Lord, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. ⁶ The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook. ⁷ And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. (1 Kings 17:3-7)

At the brook, God was providing for Elijah with the brook and the ravens. Those were the channels of His provision for that time. But soon that season ended, the brook dried up and it was time for a new channel of provision.

 

 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ⁹ “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” ¹⁰ So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, “Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink.” ¹¹ And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, “Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” (I Kings 17: 8-11 )

2.  A widow is an  unlikely channel we could think of for God to use but God as the  Source knows the appropriate channel of His provision in each season of our lives.  The channels He chooses are connected to His purposes for us and others.  In this story of the prophet and the widow, God’s plans for the widow  were connected to her obedience in being His channel of provision for the prophet Elijah. Her obedience was the key that unlocked her own provision in the drought.

So she said, “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 see, 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 Kings 17:12)

Could you be the in the widow’s position (not having much for yourself ) yet God is asking you to be his channel of provision to someone or some people?

I encourage you to read the entire 1 Kings 17. The widow’s obedience to God in a difficult time ushered in much more than she could imagine. Her household never starved, they had meals to share in the drought, the Lord revived her son who was dead, not forgetting the peace, joy and grace of the Lord she experienced in that season.

2. God will always provide our needs and not necessarily our wants. 

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’³² For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you NEED all these things. (Matthew 6:31-32 NKJV)

This was not an easy lesson for us to grasp.  Previously in the corporate world of consistent salaries and doing what we wanted when we wanted, Learning that God always provides the needs and not necessarily my wants definitely stretched me. It revealed the dark places in my heart that needed God’s redemption. Selfishness, pride, and sin. God was not my treasure, Money was.  My priorities were misaligned. My life was not about His Kingdom but my satisfaction and comfort even if it came at the expense of others less fortunate than me. Coming face to face with these hard truths about myself made me cry out to God for His saving grace.

Sadly false teachings  have taught  us to demand the wants from God, and when He does not grant them, we are dissatisfied with God’s provision. We find ourselves grumbling and just being ungrateful for our portions.

Be assured that God will meet your all your needs. Think of the ‘wants’ us extras, or bonus, you can thrive without them. Learn to thrive with the needs and appreciate the wants when they are given. Like the Apostle Paul, My husband and I  have lived this truth he writes to the church in Philippi:

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. ¹² I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. At the moment I have all I need—and more! I am generously supplied with the gifts you sent me with Epaphroditus. They are a sweet-smelling sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God. And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.

 

3.  Generosity knows no seasons;

When God is your source,  you are His channel of provision. He can use you as His channel of provision at any time. Because God never runs out, you are always in a position to be generous. Hoarding and stinginess will clog the channel of God’s provision for you and others.  Generosity becomes so much easier when you relinquish control of your provision to God. Freely God has provided for you, freely allow to be a channel He can use to bless others.

The gift in generosity is that it allows you to treasure God above all else especially material gains wealth and riches.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.  

(Matthew 6:33-34 NKJV)

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for loving us so deeply. Lord we continue to look to you in this difficult times of the COVID-19 virus. Give us renewed understanding of what it means to trust in you completely and resting in your Love oh Father. Undo the worries and fears of the unknown future to the glory of your name. Amen.