Provision God's way....

Good morning all-

How are you?  It's been some time since I've written.  I have many things on my mind but I think the title of this post has been most prevalent in the last couple of months.  Compassion Sunday is around the corner, Syrian refugees are hiding from the bombing against ISIS, a mayor in Mexico was killed for taking a stand against the mafia and Taiwan just had a devastating earthquake.  Destruction, sorrow, fear and despair are spreading throughout the world.  And then I read the call from the Pope and I had to totally agree.  We are getting more and more desensitized.  Our young men are hiding behind video games and our young women are finding power in all the wrong places.  The other generations have gotten angrier, more disenchanted with hope and our candidates for president lack unity under God.

This is the world we are facing but in the midst, the Pope called us to love.  He is asking the Catholic Church to look beyond taking sugar and alcohol out of their diets during Lent and replace it with sacrifice by sowing seeds, loving their neighbors and bringing hope to the world.  It's a message most people won't understand but the Bible is clear, we are to love God above all others and our neighbors.  That could mean the people next door but I think it's more than that.  It's loving the people that were in a 71 story building, praying for Syrians, the poor and really anyone going through a trial.  It's praying for hope when it seems hopeless and it's asking the God of all mercy to bring peace on earth.

The question I have rolling in my head is "How is God going to provide for all these different people groups?"  I have no good answer but I know that He is and He will because all of these different groups have come on my heart in the last couple of weeks.  Every last one of them.  I can't read a Twitter feed without praying.  I can't see a postcard from Compassion without praying and I definitely can't look at the faces of children as they are being pulled out of a building that looks like the columns that crumbled at Samson's hands.  I am not desensitized because I've been asking God for days to give me His eyes and His heart.  Hate can't manifest itself in our hearts if we pray and we can't stay in our own belief system of provision because only God can provide for all these terrible circumstances.  No Government, No amount of money, No person can heal the sick, feed the hungry or provide hope in the darkness like Christ can.  It's our duty to pray, to have a heart and when we get one. it should be our prayer for God to guide us in how we should respond.  I'm not a military person with great shooting skills and I'm not a physician, nurse or practitioner.  I can't climb a building and I don't know how to use a fire hose.  I can't clean up the Flint Michigan water crisis and I can't solve the homelessness in Kansas.  That's a ton of things I can't do but I can do one thing, I can pray that my heart aligns with God's will and that I pray with persistence and repetition. The rest is in the hands of the only provider we need. 

We have been provided for.  Every dollar, every piece of food and in every act of kindness, God stands at the forefront.  He is with us on earth and He will come back one day.  The world is evil, we know that but the God of our hearts is calling us to soften our hearts through prayer. He is asking us to give up ourselves and the things we believe we provide and give back by loving others more than we love ourselves.  We can find beauty in the provision of Christ when we believe He will provide. I'm along way from staying in this mindset but over the last couple of years, I've come to realize that every thing I have, every moment of peace and every second of joy comes from God, not me, not in the US and not in the world.  It resides in the Word of God and in the Holy Spirit He left behind.  Our God is one with us, for us and for every nation under the Heavens.

Our provision is provided when we give, when we sow and when we love someone else.  That's what Jesus did.  He gave of His time, His love and most importantly, His life.  Let's listen to the men of God who are calling us to believe in the unseen.  Go where you haven't gone for a long time and rest in God's provision and please pray for the world.  Only through prayer will we see God's provision, love and saving grace.

I pray that during this Holy time people in the US and all over the world will unite and ask God to soften our hearts and make us His!

2 Kings 6:23 KJV

And he prepared great provision for them: and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away, and they went to their master. So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.