God’s Hand or God’s Face?
by Patricia Lake
We do indeed thank God that He is Jehovah Jireh our Provider, for we could not survive without Him. “He opens His hand and satisfies the needs of every living thing” (Psalm 145:16). How reassuring it is to know that He is compassionate and loving and is not only mindful of our every need, but desirous of being the God of our lives!
Human needs, which are many and varied, are common to everyone, whatever age or generation, and it was no different for Bible characters in their season of life.
In Caleb’s lifetime, though, it seemed he was running out of time as a result of the negative reports of others. Yet he kept in faith and pleased God. At eighty-five years of age he was still desirous of entering into his promised land. God granted him this, because he ‘wholly followed the Lord’, and he was granted Hebron (Joshua 14:8, & 12-14).
In Elijah’s day, when the widow ran out of food, God sent His servant to save the day. The only requirement was that she should be obedient to the word of God. God took her from a place of ‘not enough’ to ‘more than enough’ (1 Kings 17:12-15).
At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He was at a wedding at Cana in Galilee when suddenly the wine ran out (which could have been a great embarrassment for the host). Jesus was called on by His mother to help, and miraculously He provided wine of a superior quality (John 3:1-11). We see that Jesus loved being among the ordinary people.
But God wants to take His people a step further, as we see in the life of Abraham. Abraham’s test was on a different level. More than anything he wanted a son, and, after communing with God, he was granted his desire. However, it was not instantaneous. He had to wait a quarter of a century to see the fulfilment of the promise.
Then once he received the promise, his greatest test was yet to come. Did he love Isaac, his promised son, more than he loved God Himself? Would Abraham be prepared to part with his long awaited son and give him as a sacrifice to God? We know the outcome that Abraham passed the test, as at the final moment of testing God intervened, “Abraham, Abraham … do not lay a hand on the boy, Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son” (Genesis 22:11-12).
Abraham’s tests were individual to him, as are all our tests, and we may not be tested to the degree that Abraham was, but the question still remains. Do we love the blessings of God more than the giver of those blessings?
God loves to bless His people, but, as in the case of Abraham, God wants us to love Him for who He is, not just for the blessings that He gives us. That’s a requirement we may all have to face at some stage, as God desires to tabernacle with all of His people in the fullness of time.
Patricia Lake is now Ellel’s Representative in Curacao, in the Dutch West Indies, where she is now living, having served with Ellel Ministries as Peter Horrobin’s Secretary for almost 20 years. Prior to that she was in ministry in her local Pentecostal church in Birmingham, before feeling the call of God to serve in the healing and deliverance ministry at Ellel Grange in the northwest of England.
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