Resting in the Unseen Providences
Learning to Love the Things We Cannot Understand and Do Not Know
Good Morning,
The Christian faith has a number of benefits some of which we unknowingly take advantage of fairly regularly in life. We can remember obvious ones like speaking unto our Father who art in Heaven by His invitation, which we call prayer. In that mercy we are granted access to the very throne room of God because Jesus Christ who brought reconciliation between sinners and a holy and righteous Lord of Lords. Those He chose from before the foundation of the world to be raised up from spiritual death and receive the bounty of spiritual life eternal, both in this realm and the one to come. As we rest in the gift and grant of this mercy by His love, and those who love Him take advantage of it for their daily blessing.
Being thankful for the goodness of God in those things we know is not hard. It is when we start to consider all the other providences which go unnoticed that we can become more and more amazed at what Jehovah does for us in His loving care. Think about the almost collisions you may have had and did not. Or the decision you made to wait a second that unknowingly to you the Lord used to spare you from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of my favorite examples of this in the Old Testament is the story found in Numbers 22-24. Well-known for its depiction of a talking donkey the people of God had no idea any of this had happened until Moses wrote it down and printed it as the book which now bears its name.
Part of the glory of Heaven will be to have the privilege of looking back and being shown the mighty hand of God and then having even more reason to worship Him and praise His name, but we do not need to wait that long to begin the process of thanksgiving. How often do we read in the psalms where David adores the counsel of the Holy One for what He will do in the future for His covenant people? A good sample of this can be found in Psalm 124:2-3a as he says, “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive.” The hope expressed in understanding the hand of God in the past and present allows us as His children to rest in peace in what will come in the impending days ahead.
It is wise for us to take a moment every now and then and sit down and meditate and name all the glory you have because God is God and He has witnessed mercy and grace to you, a sinner, who deserved nothing but wrath for your rebellion against Him. You truly cannot spend enough time considering all of these good things, yet if we are honest we often spend a lot more time asking God for stuff rather than adoring and resting in Him in love. For today’s prayer and worship help we will think through our need to do just that daily as we grow in strength by the power of the Holy Spirit, granted to us by faith alone.
As you might remember I am spending this week in Rwanda as part of the ARP SEED Ministry. I had the awesome privilege to preach Sunday morning. While it can be intimidating under the best of circumstances to proclaim God’s word in a new and unfamiliar congregation it was because the people there sang with joy and expressed that happiness with unfailing faith that it made the task quite simple, for these were the LORD’s people and the LORD’s people love to hear the story, made awesome in glory. Here we have just an easy pickens’ story that helps to illustrate what is meant by considering the blessings of the future. What made me at peace to speak to group not only that I had never met before, but who didn’t talk the same broken southern West Virginian that I do, is that we share a common blood and a common savior. I needed to not to be anxious for the moment of bringing God’s word to God’s people for the simple reason that despite the earthly difficulties present there were none when it came to the spiritual connection we shared in Jesus Christ. Truly the ending of the speaking in tongues at the close of the apostolic age does not mean we have re-entered a Babel situation where no one can understand each other. Rather our being knit together in the family of God means we all talk with the same grace and witness to the same thought because we serve and rest in the same Jesus.
This is practically lived out in how we approach daily tasks and situations. There is no reason for us to fear anything that this world can do to us for the reason that we do not have Christ on our side for the moment. His promise is also not one of those things that needs renewed. We didn’t take an oath to cooperate with Jesus in this work. Our great joy is knowing that all of it is of Him. He makes the vow, He keeps the vow, and He ensures through the Spirit and the means of His grace that all who are His maintain throughout their earthly life. It is why a passage like Matthew 11 is so meaningful to us. All we need to do is come, and even then, how many times does the assurance of the parable of the 99 or the prodigal describe our own situation? We have been the one and we have been the youngest eating what the pigs would not. If you are not willing to admit or recognize this then you do not really know the depth of your need or what you have in Jesus Christ. You must then repent and cast away your self-righteousness.
In closing, I am fond of repeating the saying of Jesus that you have not because you ask not. If you feel like you cannot spend time daily thanking God for His providential grace then the source is likely because you do not take advantage of the things you do see. 11am Christians are constantly spiritually malnourished in faith for they eat not when the food is offered. It should be no surprise that if you don’t go to school every day you won’t be able to read. Why are we so hard on our children for not taking seriously their earthly studies when we so easily cast off our spiritual studies? It’s worth us taking a moment to take stock and put in the effort.
Here is the extra reading for the day:
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church