Our Previous Provider and Protector

I have come to know God as a provider and a protector, and I have also come to know him as what I call “previous.” You see, nothing takes God by surprise and He puts things in place for the good of those who love Him before an event occurs. Forgive me, I do not mean to take liberties with Romans 8:28, which we know says that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. But, when we mature in our walk with Christ we will come to realize that God has been putting “all things” together from the beginning of time and has been working them for our good. For example, I often wondered why God has made me live in basically what could be considered isolation for so long, and then comes COVID-19, which has forced so many to be isolated. I knew God was working out things in me in my solitary condition, but He was also preparing me for a time such as this. Interestingly, I may be alone physically, but I am more connected with the outside world than I have been for years. As many of us have had to “Zoom” in on friends, family and colleagues, it really has given me a new perspective on God. He doesn’t waste our experiences and puts even the bad ones in its place in what seems like a puzzle to us, but what is simply a piece that God has been weaving in the tapestry of our life even before He knitted us in our mother’s womb.

From the start, God had a blueprint for how He was going to design our lives. He fashioned Adam after he had fruits and plants to eat, the sun to bask in, and rivers to take a cool drink and to have a refreshing bath. God also planned ahead and had a job for Adam to name the animals, knowing that the devil finds work for idle hands. Yet, we know all this, but we worry that somehow God has forgotten us and is not taking care of us in our trials. God never sleeps or slumbers, He is always working, even when we feel He is being silent.

Last year was a difficult year for me. I recognized that I wasn’t trusting God as I should, so I asked Him to help me to trust Him. If you know God well, you might be able to guess what happened next? Yes, things heated up. It was not as if the trials were coming one after the other. That would have made things too easy. Instead, I was been bombarded by troubles coming from all different directions, many at the same time. There was nothing else I could do but trust God. I believe He opened my eyes to my lack of trust, so that I could ask and receive as I needed to be able to trust Him during these times of uncertainties due to COVID-19 and so many other issues throughout the world. God is a God of set-up, not buck-up (coincidence). He prepared me for this season and put many people and things I would have needed in place. It may be beyond our comprehension that God would orchestrate hardships for our own good. But He does. For this very reason James tells us to:

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4

Those tests of many kinds are providential as they are well planned out to bring us into a more intimate relationship with God, in which He becomes our all in all. Our dependency is on Him and no one else as we come to understand that He alone is our source. When we get to this point we will lack nothing, even though the world may think we lack everything. We must always remember that God knows the plan He has for us and it is not to harm us, but to prosper us and give us a hope and a future. (See Jeremiah 29:11).

And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:2-5

God pours out His love on us by preparing us for His purposes. A good father will prepare for His child to carry out God’s purposes just like David did as he put together much of what was needed for his son, Solomon, to build the Lord’s temple. He knew Solomon was young and inexperienced so David started putting things in place to ensure that Solomon would succeed. God has been doing the same thing for us before the beginning of time. He wasn’t taken off guard by Adam’s fall in the Garden of Eden which led to spiritual death and separation from Him. The Lord already had in mind that Jesus would be the last Adam giving us eternal life and reconciling us to Himself. This is an amazing thought that God would have planned from beforehand to sacrifice His only begotten Son for a sinful people because He loved them so much. Knowing God loves us this much we can trust that whatever we are going through will have a good outcome.

The Lord told Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5) Jeremiah was not unique, God does the same for us. He has created us for a purpose at this time. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10) Our Creator has prepared a program for our lives from the genesis of the world, we just need to get with His program. Once He has called us from the womb having predestined us to be His chosen instrument, then He is our Previous Provider and Protector.