God-Centered Prayer: Week 5 – God’s Provision
This is our final week of the “God-Centered Prayer” series. I hope you have been encouraged and blessed by it! If you’re joining us for the first time, you’ll find the links to the previous posts of this series at the bottom of this post. I hope you will take advantage of the FREE PRINTABLE PRAYER GUIDES at the bottom of each post in this series! It’s a great way to teach your children how to praise God in their prayers. Also take a look at our “31 Days of Prayer” series. There you will find a different Prayer Guide to help focus specifically on the needs of the heart. I love to choose one word to pray over my children for the day. It helps when I feel overwhelmed as a parent (which happens often). If you like the Prayer Guides please share them with your friends and let me know by sending me a message.
God-Centered Prayer: God’s Provision
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
It was our second year of marriage. Our baby was a few months old, and we were living on love and the income God had given us at this stage of life. We were struggling to manage the tiny rent and stack of bills that were constantly coming in.
I fed my baby girl, got her dressed and packed her bag for the day. I put the final bit of formula in the diaper bag knowing full well I could not afford to go to Target and purchase another can. I strapped her in her car seat and off we went.
I walked up the concrete path to the child-care center at my workplace and handed over my child and diaper bag containing the precious formula.
As I turned to leave there was a petite desk in the corner with a yellow sign that said “FREE.” I got a little closer and I looked at what was hiding behind the yellow sign. Sitting there on the desk was a can of formula.
You may say it’s a coincidence, but I call it a miracle.
God looked down into our teeny house and saw our teeny baby and provided for our big need.
The God of the universe said, “I care about you. I see you. I know exactly what you need.”
God loves to do miracles. We see it all over the Bible.
I wish we could sit down and I could tell you about the $250 check that showed up in my mailbox every semester when I was in college, or the $4,000 check in the mailbox arriving at the perfect time to cover some leaps of faith in our life. I wish I could show you the furniture that God has furnished our home with that didn’t cost a penny or the clothes that fill our closets that continue to show up on our doorstep year after year. Some people may think I’m just a lucky girl with lots of nice stuff, but I know the truth. God is the owner of it all. God provides above and beyond anything we can ever explain. God wants to bless to you too.
I’ve grown to expect miracles. It’s not that I want more or think I deserve the best of everything, but I know God is bigger than anything this world can offer. For some reason He keeps proving Himself in ways I cannot explain.
If you feel like you are in need of an extra special blessing or a miracle of your own, take time to focus on God as the provider of all things. It’s amazing how He proves Himself in the details of our lives. Think about what He has done in your own life. Have you experienced a miracle but labeled it a coincidence? Let’s give God the glory for being the amazing provider that He is!
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19
Keep your eyes and heart wide open this week and look for God’ s provision in your life.
In case you missed it, here are the other posts in this series:
God’s Presence
God’s Power
God’s Peace
God’s Purpose
Looking for miracles this week! Will you join me?
Love & Blessings,
Micah
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Micah, I was so happy for the way God has blessed you as I read your blog. But, after being a Christian since age 8, when I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, I have many opportunities to reflect these past sixty years on the ‘unanswered prayers’. I fear that so often in the Christian community, we have been taught to serve God, trust Him, believe the promises in the Bible and everything will be all right. Then, what does that do to a Christian’s faith, when he or she watches their child die, sees a spouse turn against God and desert his family? What about the Christian whose parent is an abuser, manipulator and evil, all the while telling the world what a wonderful Christian they are? Micah, I think, as we study Scripture intently, asking for the Holy Spirit’s guidance, that we read Christ’s words telling us that in the world we will have tribulation. We are to be of good cheer, and we can experience His joy and peace, but we will still have tribulation. Some of these tribulations are very painful, and God does not always remove them. Then, if we read the words of Paul in the epistles, we see again the pain, mistreatment and tribulations and suffering that he endured. This world is not Heaven. It is a sinful, fallen world where tragedy does occur, even for the Christian. I think that more needs to be taught on experiencing God’s peace when our prayers are not answered. I write this in Christian love, not in criticism. God Bless, Bev
Sweet Bev, I completely agree. This world is not Heaven. You have had much more life experience than I have and I appreciate your nudge to write on the more heart breaking topics. You’re right, we will have tribulation – plenty, much more than we could ever wish on anybody. The previous posts in this series – God’s Presence & God’s Peace focus on exactly what you mentioned. I hope those are an encouragement to you. I am not an expert and always appreciate your input. I’m sorry if I offended you by sharing my blessings in this context. That is not the intent. The purpose of this post is to give God glory for the things that only He can do. If you read my other posts and have feedback, please let me know.
Love & Blessings,
Micah
Micah, thanks for your reply. I wasn’t offended by your sharing God’s blessings in this context. We rejoice in hearing about God’s goodness and His provision for His children. I read your previous posts and was blessed by them. Also, I wasn’t accusing you by any means of saying to trust God and everything will be O.K. My original reply was so brief that I didn’t fully explain where I’m coming from in what I wrote. Since I’ve retired from years of teaching and then being a Christian counselor, I’ve had time to reflect on the large number of Christians who are asking why they have to suffer seemingly unanswered prayers, and why they have to endure suffering that has gone on for years, even though they have prayed earnestly for God to intervene. One of the benefits of being retired, in addition to spending time with my wonderful husband, is that I have more time to pray and study my Bible. We’ve observed that all of the churches that we’ve attended through the years seem to want to preach a “Happy Ever After Gospel”. It’s like, just get saved and everything will be rosy. Anyway, after spending 3 years searching the Scriptures, I understand that the Bible plainly tells us that there is suffering, persecution, and trials and tribulation in this world. So many people I know feel that their churches have lied to them and haven’t prepared them for life in the ‘real’ world. So, Micah, that’s where I was coming from in my reply. I love your blog and please forgive me for my reply coming across as me being offended or as a criticism. That wasn’t my intention at all. Now, when I study my Bible, I focus on God’s promises, and I have experienced His peace that passes all understanding so many times. He is a God of comfort. What I’m discovering and what I’m telling hurting Christians is that above all else, we just have to trust God. Trust that since He loved us so much to send his Son to die for our sins, we know that we can trust Him with the details of our lives. Another truth that the Lord has put on my heart is that we must submit our wills to His will. He knows what He’s doing and He knows what’s best. There’s lots of comfort in that! Blessings, Bev
Bev, thank you so much for taking the time to let me in on where you are coming from and for taking the time to read other posts. I definitely want to share the message of trusting God in every aspect our lives. I’m so thankful He is faithful in the good times and in the bad. I too, have experienced that peace that passes understanding and my prayer and desire is that others will too! I think our hearts are in unison to share the same message. It’s not happily ever after, but by abiding in Christ, He will carry us through the suffering and seasons of waiting.
Micah,
I love reading stories about God’s provision and I LOVED reading about yours! Thank you so much for sharing these details. This is going to encourage a lot of people!
Blessings to you,
Stacey
Thank you, Stacey! We serve an amazing God! I’m so thankful it was an encouragement!
I needed to be reminded of God’s miracles today. Thank you!
Barb, I’m so thankful that you were encouraged!
I’m your neighbor for both #RaRaLinkup and TestimonyTuesday! What a wonderful testimony of God’s provision! As a working mom with a toddler, I was very encouraged by your post. Thank you so much for sharing.
I’m so happy that you were encouraged! God is faithful!
Hi Micah! I am new here.. just popping over from A Little R & R! This post is fantastic! I totally agree!! We get what we expect in life.. if we expect God to perform miracles.. guess what? He does!! We’ll definitely have to chat more on this topic.. ; ) And, I actually just started a series very similar to this topic called Finding Favor.. :):) Ttys!
I would love to chat sometime! I look forward to your series! So glad you stopped in! Welcome!