Sunday, September 22, 2013

The Mark of God’s Providence On Your Life

IS IT THAT MUCH of a coincidence that we sit here, where we’re at, today?
Can we see how God has brought us here, today, this morning, this afternoon, this evening? Can we feel that sense that God has been ‘in’ our past week – even to this day? What about the past year – good, bad or indifferent – can we see how God has been leading us to this point?
Stretch it back a little way; to a few years back – five or ten. Can we see God’s hand in the passage of that journey – not bringing heartbreak through intention, but allowing it, in the belief that in surviving such things we would grow and be more available people?
And if life has improved over that past ten years or so, what do we put that down to?
What does analysing our pasts do in considering our futures? If we are who we are and we have been where we have meant to have gone, we will most certainly go where we are destined to go. Imagine the possibilities.
God is part of our lives – our Provider God – whether we accept it or not. He is the Force for Life and the Provider of Circumstances. Nothing gets in the way of his Divine will. Nothing and nobody is beyond either his will or provision.
It is joy to accept this; it is destructive to deny it or rally against it some way.
The qualities of God are fundamental to caring for our present and providing for our futures. What is required of us is plain trust. God does everything else.
The mark of God’s providence on our lives is irrefutable and irrevocable. What is an utterly good thing – thriving with hope and purpose – is something that will never be missing from our lives. How great is God that he cares for each of us, uniquely, proactively, purposefully, eternally?
And God’s providence is just one mark of our holy and living God!
***
We cannot see God’s purposes in the pain we endure – not at the time. But afterwards, with divine perspective in sight, we know that God neither tested us nor abandoned us. Indeed, the providence of God was sowing hope all the time; God meant all of it for our good and not for our harm; to give us a future even beyond what we had hoped for.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

No comments: