I believe that my Heavenly Father will provide for me as His child.
I believe that Jesus the Good Shepherd will meet my needs as one of His sheep.
I believe that the Comforter will do exactly that for me.
I believe all that because the Bible tells me so.
But I still struggle against doubt and fear and…well, never mind.
What do you know about trust?
Do you believe this chapter (from a book my friend Steve H loaned me)?
He Always Provides for Our True Needs
Have you asked the Lord to fulfill all your needs? This mighty request requires no intercession from others, for God will provide for all of your needs in Christ Jesus without their asking Him to do so. He is your heavenly Father, and as such, He has obligated Himself to meet your necessities.
Any anxiety we have concerning temporal necessities issues from unbelief. We need never worry about what we shall eat, drink, or wear. These things our Father knows we need, and so we must not fret about them as do those who are not in living union with the Lord.
The reality is that if I do not have something, I do not need it. God is meeting all of my needs at every moment. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not lack. That is always true.
I believe the confusion comes because we do not know what our true needs really are. We can ask the Lord in a general way to give us our daily bread, but what is our daily bread? Isaiah reminds us that for a season the Lord fed His people with the bread of affliction because of their special need. Peter wrote to afflicted Christian pilgrims and reminded them that their heaviness in manifold temptations was necessary for the testing of their faith. Peter said, “If need be” God would allow them to experience trouble and affliction.
God is always meeting the needs of all of His children. We do not know what our needs are, and so we must ever trust Him to supply the things we need as He sees and understands them.
If I need bread, He will provide bread. If I need poverty, He is also faithful to provide poverty. I may think I need deliverance from a certain thing, but God knows it is more needful for me to know Him through struggle, so He allows the conflict to continue to meet my greater need. If we are in need of patience, what do you suppose God may allow in our lives? If we are in need of Calvary love, do you think He may send some unlovely person our way so can learn to appropriate His love?
Any suggestion that God is not at all times providing for our every need fosters discontent. That does not mean we should judge the hearts of those who feel a burden to share a list of supposed needs in an attempt to enlist the prayer support of the body. We should rather encourage them to remember that God is meeting their needs before they ask.
What a hallowed rest is ours, abiding in the Father’s care! We must not wrong His faithfulness by needless fretting. As long as God remains, our waters are sure; the same love the prompts the Lord to lavish His supply on us in times of necessity induces Him to withhold it. That is His business. Ours is to trust.
If we were alive to our real needs and how He ever meets them, we would never stop blessing God for what a supplier He is. Peace finds its footing in the character of God.
Rest!
Edward Miller in God’s Dawn for Every Darkness
If that rings true to you, do you live by it?
If that does not ring entirely true to you, what specifically sounds false or questionable?
I’m dubious about this, for instance;
This mighty request requires no intercession from others, for God will provide for all of your needs in Christ Jesus without their asking Him to do so.
That sounds like I shouldn’t ask others to pray for me. And that others shouldn’t bother themselves to pray for me. If that’s what he means, I need some Scriptural support for that teaching.
I’m also wondering about this:
We do not know what our needs are, and so we must ever trust Him to supply the things we need as He sees and understands them.
I don’t know what my needs are?! I’ll grant that I don’t know all my needs nor the full extent of the ones I know.
However, if what he says is correct, why should I bother praying about my needs?
Well, whatever the case, I certainly like this:
If we were alive to our real needs and how He ever meets them, we would never stop blessing God for what a supplier He is. Peace finds its footing in the character of God.
“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24).
Amen.