The Enormity of Providence

God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.
~ John Piper

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Colossians 1 and Ephesians 3

Oh beloved, it is true. There is food for us that nearly none of us even know. For our meat is truly to do the will of G_d. But, in thinking that we need to do things to fulfill His will, we miss the point altogether. No, G_d is already in control, and will most certainly fulfill His will in us and through us.

But the meat? The sustenance? What is it? The will of G_d is that He be exactly who He is. He is Love. And Love is the profound concern for the wellbeing of another. Love is doing good for another, at my own expense, with affection, for G_d’s glory. And Him, being G_d, does what He does seeking (rightly) His own fame.

In making Himself famous, the overpressure of His Great Love pours out on us in manifold waves of goodness and grace and hope and strength and healing and help and wisdom and everything else. This storm flowing forth from Him – over us and into us and through us – is what has been commonly called: “The Providence of God.”

Even so, there is within each of us, a short-sightedness so profound as to be better called blindness. We, in swimming in the tsunami of His Goodness and Provision, all too often begin to think that the slightest ripple in the waves is a sign that some sort of “dry spell” is about to instantly take over the ocean around us.

Could this fool of a writer preach a little?  Could we just stop for a moment? Really. Stop.

And in coming to stillness, could we begin to recount the enormous (read beyond countable) help, our Helper has already given to us?  Could we take our eyes off the tiny little ripples in the waves around us, and survey the gargantuan and vast reality of the inventory of Heaven which our Provider has already put to work for us?

Even what He has given us, then, pales in significance to the Giver.

Can we see it? What G_d has already given us in help and aid and comfort and strength are but tokens of who He is. Anything He gives us, is by definition, finite. But the Source behind the giving, is Infinite. There is, again by definition, no end then to what He can and will do in His work for us. For any amount of giving does not even begin to use up the One who is without limit.

Beloved, the truth is we are to do the will of G_d. We are to believe in Him. We are to assertively and restingly trust that He is indeed very much able and willing to meet every single need that we have. Tonight is your night beloved. Tonight is the night to abandon your tiny view of the infinitely enormous Providence at work in your life. Oh how He Loves you. Time to believe.

 

God knows us through and through. Not the most secret thought, which we most hide from ourselves, is hidden from him. As then we come to know ourselves through and through, we come to see ourselves more as God sees us, and then we catch some little glimpse of his designs with us, how each ordering of his providence, each check to our desires, each failure of our hopes, is just fitted for us, and for something in our own spiritual state, which others know not of, and which, till then, we knew not. Until we come to this knowledge, we must take all in faith, believing, though we know not, the goodness of God toward us.
~Edward Bouberie Pusey (1800-1882)