PROVISION FOR HIS OWN
When Christ taught His disciples what to pray, He did not say, "Give us enough so that we never want." Our God always provides for His own. Why do we doubt? Do believers need His assurance that no matter what this world's dire circumstances are, He will not forsake His own?
My parents lived through three wars, and the Great Depression. There were long lines for food rations, one chicken per week per family. She plucked that chicken naked, butchered wings, legs, thighs and breasts, baked it, made pies from leftovers, and soup from the bones. Our neighbors ate their chickens in two days, while ours lasted the week! Our family never went hungry during these horrific times.
Life was very difficult after the depression. It left our family almost penniless. We may have lived as beggars, but we never had to beg. The Lord held our family together, sustained us, and eventually helped us out of poverty. My father worked long days at the Fore River Shipyard, then started his own business which the Lord richly blessed. My dad was able to buy a small house with a huge yard on a winding road along the water.
Now I am old. Throughout my seasons of poverty, the Lord has always provided. I am one of His before the beginning of time, before I knew Who He is. And I will not be forsaken. Amen. (AL)
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But if it happen that any of the faithful are brought to beggary, they should lift up their minds on high, to that blessed state in which God will largely recompense them for all that is now wanting in the blessings of this transitory life.
We must also bear this in mind, that if God sometimes involve the faithful in the same punishments by which he takes vengeance upon the ungodly — seeing them, for example, affected with the same diseases, — in doing so there is no inconsistency;
for although they do not come the length of condemning God, nor are devoted to wickedness, nor even act according to their own inclination, nor yield themselves wholly to the influence of sin like the wicked, yet are they not free of all blame; and, therefore, it need not surprise us though they are sometimes subjected to temporal punishments.
We are, however, certain of this, that God makes such provision for his own people, that, being contented with their lot, they are never in want; because, by living sparingly, they always have enough, as Paul says, “I am instructed both to abound and to suffer need.”
Philippians 4:12
John Calvin
Painting: Chicken Standing on A Hill
Artist: Jean Bernard (1775-1883)