I learned in my marriage God as the God who provides. As a child my dad was the provider. My mom also worked full-time. When I wanted something I usually asked my mom; both of my parents liked to give gifts and gave without any strings attached. I love the verse
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11
when I started dating my husband. He liked to give flashy gifts. When we were engaged he bought me a car. I had a VW Jetta I’d had since I was 17. It had been struck by lightning one day and since then had a lot of electrical issues. The drivers seat was broken and it was 10 years old. I loved that car, but my husband decided he needed to buy me a new car and he would drive my Jetta. It seams nice because I was working downtown and driving on highways so the newer car would be more comfortable and safer. I didn’t ask for it and didn’t need him to but he went around telling everyone he bought me a car like he provided for me something I wasn’t able to get myself. It was a want not a need. It wasn’t providing it’s control. I wished I’d acknowledged that then. Its differen from God who provides supernaturally , not of our own strength, and as a blessing.
Psalms 78:24 NKJV
[24] Had rained down manna on them to eat, And given them of the bread of heaven.
I graduated with my Masters degree in 2006. I worked for a couple of years and then quit because my husband would make going to work a nightmare. He said working woman have affairs. His father uses the same means of control. Financial control keeps a woman from being able to leave. God used this abuse for good. I was able to spend so much time with my kids and I’m sure I wouldn’t have known God as Jahova Jirah. I would have thought it was of my own strength, talents and smarts. I needed to know God provides, because he was going to take my husband, the sole provider of our family after not working for 11 years at 43 years old and I would have to lean heavily on my first hand experience that my God provides.
In 2007 in FL the housing market collapsed and so did the construction industry. My husband’s business went from making a lot of money to none by the end of the year. Thankfully the home and property I had purchased 7 years earlier with inheritance money I had was something we both wanted to protect so any income we had went to home, fuel and food. God introduced himself as the God who provides. I would say to my kids that we live on God’s economy, because there would be no money, but somehow we always ate and we paid the Mortgage. I wasn’t always so trusting in God, but my husband’s focus was the business he ran out of the home and not the family surviving in the home. Several times I said “what are we supposed to eat? The tires?” God would remind me “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26
After he died, people he’d worked with came flooding in wanting in on the business and offering to provide all kinds of business plans. But, all I could ask people was how am I going to get rid of all these tires? God provided. His friends came in and cleaned all of it up. I shut his business down. There was no other option. He actually said to do that one day when we were talking about if we died during covid. He was the heart and soul of of that business. It didn’t run without him. It couldn’t out live him and I certainly wasn’t going to put my neck on the line for someone who wasn’t my husband. I was glad to not have to be a slave to the business anymore. I would tell him your business is supposed to work for you. He had a victim hero mindset. Whichever one got him what he wanted in a given situation or with a person.
But for me if God doesn’t provide it, I don’t want it. I don’t want to hussel my way through life. I want to walk God’s path of blessing. I have seen and can testify that God provides. When there is no earthly reason we had money to eat and pay for our shelter that God provided in the firstplace. We could sit at our kitchen table as a family and eat a meal I cooked and he paid for. God provides more than just financial, but after my husband died and left huge debts from reckless spending and impulsive buying. I was able to settle those debts and be provided for without losing my neck. Jahova Jirah. The God who provides. He is enough. God forgive me for thinking you weren’t enough. You’re everything. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. [13] I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Philippians 4.12-13
God as provider is fist mentioned in the bible when he provides a lamb for Abraham to sacrifice instead of his promised and beloved son Isaacs. Abraham obeyed God’s instructions and was willing to give his son back to God. As Jesus said
Luke 20:25 NKJV
[25] And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
God is good, faithful and just.
Sparrows by Cory Asbury