The Unchanging Providence of God

[Mel Lawrenz is a teaching pastor at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin and is the author of 17 books, including a recent release, How to Study the Bible: A Practical Guide.]

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Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty…. He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.(Psalm 91:1, 5-6)

These words from Psalm 91 are echoed many times through the Old and New Testaments, and not by people whose lives were easy. Those who suffered hunger and persecution, tyranny and anarchy, betrayal and abandonment—those are the people who spoke of their undying faith that God really does care for and govern all things despite the belief by petty lords that they have the upper hand. Despite the fact that sparrows do fall.

Providence exists because of God’s character. It is his nature that defines his relationship with everything that he made. The piece of your faith that says God is good lines up with the piece that says that life is divinely superintended. Living theology begins with God, and then takes you on a tour of the rest of reality. God’s nature and acts are the landscape out of which all other things grow.

To put it more personally, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount to go ahead and ask God, seek God, knock on his door. He is the Father in heaven. We see in the pattern of earthly fathers—when they are behaving the way fathers should—that they don’t give stone for bread or snakes for fishes. No, fathers don’t do that, and “your Father in heaven gives good gifts.”

You might think that people who have very little would have a more difficult time believing in providence than those who have much. But I find that the more I have, the easier it is for me to forget about providence. If there is plenty of food in the pantry, lots of clothes in the closet, and money in the bank, then I’m tempted to trust in the provision rather than the provider. And when I trust in the provision, then I worry about whether the provisions will run out. How much is enough? Well, just a little bit more. 

But how does that farmer in Mexico with a small plot that he has worked by hand year after year trust that he will have what he needs? He has no choice but to keep on planting and keep on praying. Because he has known times of drought, he understands the harvest, and he receives it as the blessing of heaven. He does not presume what he cannot assume. He is able to trust, and he is able exercise patience as only a farmer comprehends patience.

I don’t know exactly what February will bring, or April, October, November, or December. I suppose it is likely that next January I will be on this planet having looped millions of miles around the sun, and billions of people with me will have had countless interactions. We will have seen the seasons come and go. We’ll know someone new, and say goodbye to someone we’ve known for a long time. We’ll see.

But this much we can know: God will not change. His loving care for his creation will not stop. No nation will challenge his governance and succeed. And nothing will happen outside his vision.

Believing in providence, that God is governing what he created, gives us peace of mind because we live in a piecemeal world, and we need to know that our benevolent Creator is holding the pieces together. Heaven does touch earth. God’s plan for the world is not lost in the newspaper headlines of the world. The broken pieces of our lives are actually the building blocks out of which God rebuilds our lives. The only things that are torn down and remain rubble are the things that cannot (and should not) be rebuilt. Everything that is eternally good will be on display in the new heavens and the new earth.