God Provides

God is gracious to provide what we need most. Gloria Furman speaks of a time when she and her family had traveled to the Middle East to help plant a church. At this time, they had been in Dubai for only a couple of days during the celebration of Ramadan. They were new to the community and not entirely certain where they were supposed to be going. After driving around most of the day, they were frustrated, lost, and weary. Gloria was overwhelmed by anxiety. As they pulled over to fill up their gas tank, she reflected, “Watching the numbers tick by on the gas pump, my anxious thoughts multiplied within me. Lord, how are we going to do anything here? We can’t even get a simple errand done much less help start a church. Lord, how? How? The cares of my heart were interrupted by something I saw out of the corner of my eye. Walking into the fast food joint next door was a man wearing a pair of unique sunglasses. It was Rick, the one man we knew in a city of nearly 2 million people. Was I seeing a desert mirage? Of all the places in the city for us to have a meltdown, the Lord ordained it to be a block away from our friend’s house when he had a craving for take-out. We cheered and thanked the Lord for his providence and grace. Rick led us to his house where he fed us, encouraged us in the Lord, and sorted out some of our errands. Some of us even dozed off on his couch.” God can provide, even when it all hope appears to be lost (Gloria Furman, “God’s Promise and a Petrol Station,” The Gospel Coalition, April 16, 2013, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/gods-promise-and-a-petrol-station/).