The Provider

What's God done for you that you can be thankful for this season? When I look back on my journey with Christ, I think about all of the things, great and very very small that He has done for me. The one constant thing over the years, has been the tremendous generosity He has shown me.

I grew up as a pastor's kid back when it was not popular, nor a wealthy endeavor. I can remember so fondly my mother spreading out all the bills on her bed each month. She would take the ones she knew she could pay, and write checks for them, carefully teaching me how to do it. Then she would spread out the ones that she couldn't afford to pay and she would pray over each one: "God, I need $241.72 this month for the utilities, can you please provide? Lord, the registration is coming up on the car this month as well. We need $52.36 for that. Can you please provide it? In your name, Amen." And as I sat there, baffled at how she payed the bills, she smiled at me and said, "Now... let's see how God pays the bills."

Sure enough, over the week, we would receive a refund check from something she overpaid that was exactly $52.36. Or my dad would find an envelope on his desk at work with $241.72 and a note that simply said "God told me to give this to you." It was absolutely impossible not to see God in that, even for a skeptical kid.

The winter when I was seven years old, we lived in Edmonton, Canada and were chilled to the bone. We also ran out of money for groceries. We prayed over our fridge and asked God to provide. I could see the worried looks on my parents faces, and wondered how God would really put food in my fridge? The next afternoon, I was walking home from school and saw two large grocery bags FULL of food sitting on our doorstep. I burst through the door and  happily exclaimed "Daddy! God brought us food!!" Years later my dad cried and cried about that one simple gesture, that kind thing that some random person listened to God's voice and obeyed.

I think about all of the things God has done for me, the ways He has provided for me, even through the readers of this very blog and I am in awe. How can I not see his hand as I cook in my wonderful kitchen and not think about the way in which He provided it? How can I not send my little boy off to school each morning, waving to him as he drives away in our car and not think about how God provided that car to us, when we knew we couldn't afford one? How can I look at the beautiful snow-covered Mt. Shasta and not think about the very long, and God ordained road that brought us here, when all hope was lost? And how can I look at the simple drawing of numbers Elijah brings home each day and not think about how God perfectly created, and took care of the tiny little hands that drew them?

He is everywhere and this holiday season, I am absolutely loving looking back on all that God has done for little old me, big and small. How can I not feel  your love God? It is all around me.