The origin of the word ‘provide’ gives us a different perspective on the word – before-seeing, or foresight. The God who provides is the God who sees ahead. We couldn’t anticipate our circumstances, nor what we would need. Alongside our scrabbling around to get the help we needed, we also found unexpected supplies to help us on the way.
Every day, I look up at the sky for fifteen minutes and try and connect with God. It is my way of practising the discipline of silence.
But even when the world is quiet, I am the noisiest person in the universe. My internal noise drowns all quiet. My brain just doesn’t stop.
It’s not a battle: it’s losing your foothold and swirling beneath the waves. You cannot overcome when the hard times come; you are overcome.
This is our reality. But it is not the only story.
This is the only way to accept praise and criticism, especially of your work – with a light hand. Don’t swallow the opinions down: the good ones are too saccharine, the bad ones too bitter to digest. Hold them in your hand lightly.
I was once at a confirmation service where the former Bishop of Exeter, Michael Langrish, gave an excellent sermon, using a ladder as an illustration. My memory of it is a little dim now, so I’ll be forgetting the nuances of his point, but in any case the image of a ladder has remained in my mind.
God, dwelling with God’s people, shared their desire to dwell somewhere more permanent, safe, and beautiful than just a tent in the wilderness. We have a God-given longing for a ‘spacious place’.
This is how we come to God, as children, as needy people, hands open, on our knees. It is not a posture we take very often; we wish to be seen as capable, strong, independent. But it is the only way to receive blessing – to have both hands out in surrender to catch it.
You would think it would be easy to be in the here-and-now when you are housebound. My ‘here’ is very comfortable: lemon walls, white cupboards, two pillows on my bed, the birds starting to sing for morning. Spring is tentatively tiptoeing in, bruised by all the snow and rain. But the ‘there’ creeps in too. […]
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Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]