The Great Provider - Martin Wiles

Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Genesis 22:13 NLT

They provided everything we needed for a successful conference.

Each year, teachers from my school are invited to an ACTS (Association of Christian Teachers and Schools) conference in Concord, North Carolina, for two days of intense training. Our school puts us up in a nice hotel that serves a hot continental breakfast.

The church/school hosting the conference also does a great job of providing for our needs. A large café room continually presents water, coffee, hot tea, and snacks. And their chef creates a taste-bud-tantalizing evening meal, complete with numerous desserts.

When we need teaching, they provide. When we need preaching, they deliver. And when we need encouragement, they serve it in large doses. For two days, they are great providers.

But what the leaders of ACTs and the church do doesn't begin to compare with what God does. Abraham discovered this when God asked him to sacrifice the one son he’d been promised and had waited years to get. 

Now Isaac was a young man, and God asked Abraham to take him to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him as a sign of his faithfulness to and love for Him. But just before Abraham delivered the death blow, an angel stopped him and showed him a ram caught in the thicket. It would substitute for his son.

For my entire life, God has demonstrated He’s in the providing business. He does it in His timing. God hasn’t always delivered when I wanted Him to—but He has delivered. I don’t understand His timing, and He usually doesn’t explain it. My job is to walk by faith.

Sometimes, God’s provision shows up at the last minute. Just before the electricity is cut off, just before the insurance is canceled, just before the engine sucks the last drop of gas, or just before the first chemo treatment begins. Faith leads me to hang on to the last moment.

God enjoys waiting until my resources are depleted before He shows up. This teaches me I should have been depending on Him all along—not just when I got to the point where I couldn’t handle it myself. But it’s often at those points of desperation that I’m willing to give Him my all. And when I do, He shows me the ram in the thicket.

Trust God to provide your every need. He is the great Provider.

Tweetable: Are you trusting God to provide for you?

Prayer: Father, thank You for promising to meet our every need—and then delivering right on time. 

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