Seeing God Provisions

Anyone else feel like life these days is a bit like the beginning of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory tour where nothing is as it used to seem and everything is topsy turvy?

It’s like the filter of what we used to know as normal has been swapped and we’re quickly trying to adapt to a new normal. Okay, well maybe I’m alone in this analogy… it is a bit specific and our kids have been watching a lot of movies these days (including Willy Wonka). But I think (hope) you know what I mean… life today looks and feels so different from life 4 months ago… and this is a big adjustment for us all. 

It’s been really challenging in some ways and really sweet in other ways. It’s all mixed up and rolled into one new (what I’m coming to accept) normal. Some of this forced change is helping bring pause to reflect on what truly matters, realigning priorities and refreshing my calling. 

I’ve started a new Sunday morning routine these past several weeks that’s been very helpful. It sort of began by accident (as a lot of good things seem to start). I had a particularly encouraging week and the encouragement came in unique and somewhat unusual ways. So when I finally had a break with a few minutes of quiet on a Sunday morning, I took that time to write them down in my largely neglected cute @riflepaper journal. 

I wrote ‘God Provisions’ in large font on the top of the page and then proceeded to list every thing I could think of that God had provided in the past few weeks. It began with the bigger obvious things, but the more I wrote the more I saw different ways God had provided. The list kept growing as the eyes of my heart grew more accustomed to seeing the beauty of God’s provision in and around me. And you know what happened next??

Hope happened… and I was super encouraged. 

Through changing the lens I was using to look back through these weeks, it also changed the lens of how I was anticipating what would be to come in these next weeks ahead. On both sides there was hope where formally there was confusion and anxiety. 

I often hear of encouragement to practice gratitude and strongly believe in this! (Que The Thank You Project we created!) But the heart posture of practicing gratitude is different from what I’m describing, they’re both good and important. But it seems in simply practicing gratitude there is an element that’s focused on us… it’s somewhat about how we are responding. 

In seeing and celebrating God provisions the focus is on what God is doing. There isn’t pressure on us to respond, not at that heart moment. Gratitude will surely flow out eventually and almost involuntarily. But in the moment of seeing God provisions it’s really about seeing God. It’s about recognizing Him at work in and around us. There is not room for thought of self. And it’s the very self-forgetfulness that seems to help fuel why this is so pure and good. 

I’ve heard people describe humility as simply thinking of one’s self less. True humility is not thinking less of oneself, it’s not putting yourself down. Humility is more in the quantity of how you think of yourself rather than the quality. 

I think when we intentionally practice seeing God Provisions a sincere and unforced humility is a sweet byproduct that with it brings freedom. Humility and freedom go hand in hand or rather put, heart in heart. 

So receive this as my long-winded (perhaps belaboring the point) admonition to take some intentional time to see and name the specific ways God is providing for you. It might be awkward to begin but I assure you as a fountain, the myriad of ways will bubble out from your heart and begin to look a lot like hope. 

Worship is so much more than words and music. This is a way we can worship - simply looking to God, seeing Him at work and celebrating His ways, His love and His attentiveness. 

He is a good, good Father. His goodness becomes more clear to us as we open our eyes see the God Provisions.