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Monday, June 15, 2009God Will Provide
Two and a half months ago, I got laid-off from work. This blog is to solicit funds to be donated to the Allen foundation to help me… wooo. Stop!
Isn’t this blog entitled “God will provide?” That means, I don’t have to worry or solicit or ask anything from anyone because, God will provide. Do I hear you say Amen?
In my first blog, I shared my old interpretation of the bible verse from the Gospel of Matthew 4:3-4. I wrote, “we can have bread by holding on to every word that comes from God. That means - everything is going to be fine even if we do not work or we do not save money for our future. As long as we read the bible, go to church, sing worship songs and follow the Ten Commandments - God will provide!”
This is close to what I’m doing today.
I said close because I still read the bible, go to church, sing worship songs and follow the Ten Commandments. The difference - I am now self-employed and I learned to save money for my retirement.
Before anything else, let me backtrack a bit. On March 15, 1621, the Philippines was discovered by Magellan…. that’s too far back - fast forward… before we came to Canada, I worked as an IT consultant and my wife runs her own business with her sister. I have three clients where I work one day a week for each of them. Three times a week, I would help my wife purchase and deliver popular cakes and pastries to her sister in Palawan (a tourist haven in the Philippine islands). The remaining four days of the week is devoted to our community activities (bible study, prayer meeting and worship, outreach and so on).
If you noticed our work schedule, more than 50 percent of our time was devoted to the Giver and not on the gifts. Why would we do this? Two years before I had my clients and my wife’s business, we had nothing. Having said this, it is just proper to devote most of our time to the source of our blessings.
Within two years, from nothing to something, God provided well for us - all the time.
But it wasn’t all like that. After a year of migrating to Canada, we started to question the very same words that gave us hope – does God really provide? God’s provisions didn’t come as easy as they were back in the Philippines. I know the God in the Philippines and the God in Canada is one and the same. How come, He cannot hear our prayers here? Where is the God that provides? We started to ask a lot of questions.
The scripture says “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” (Psalm 37:4-5,7)
Regardless of the many questions we had, my wife and I would talk by encouraging ourselves that God is in complete control of our situation. He did not bless us to be here in Canada for nothing. We know that our breakthrough will come in God’s time. We have to cling to His words. The verse says – “Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”
This is probably why we experience a lot of stress and anxiety because we doubt in the capacity of our Lord to provide for us. The peace and joy that we have with our Lord is being robed by these negative thoughts, doubts and fear.
We fear so much whether if God will provide or not. So, what do we do? We take things into our hands.
When I look back at my life before I came into the renewal, I would work for 20 hours average a day. There are days that I don’t get to sleep for 72 hours and yet the work seems endless. I had wasted a tremendous amount of energy beating myself up and getting all stressed out for nothing.
I’m not saying that I’m against this practice of having two or three or even four jobs. I respect people who work double time for their family. But if you keep complaining about work, about not going anywhere, about not being able to pay your debts, about your health, about money (where you should already have more than enough) then I think you have to stop and evaluate yourself. What I’m saying is, pause for a while, step back a bit and take some time to reflect and find out the cause of your problems?
"With all the work I'm doing, why am I not going anywhere?"
It may be as simple as opening your doors and windows so God can work in your lives. The scripture says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
I have seen our Lord come through time and time again without fail, right at the very time when you need Him.
God is always there to provide for us. He is just a prayer away from us.
In my life, when things go wrong and things doesn’t go based on what I planned them to be, I pause and reflect on the following questions.
First, am I asking based on His will? “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew (6:10)
Second, do I maintain a good relationship with God? “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7).
Third, am I using the authority given to me when I'm saying my prayers? “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do.” (John 14:13).
Fourth, did I have the faith to believe that I am going to receive what I prayed for? “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.” (Mark 11:24)
I will talk more about these on my next blog.
To wrap things up, I would like to share you a story…
Somewhere in the streets of Manila, there were two neighbors living in a duplex home. The wall division between the two neighbors is a thin plywood. Living on the left side of the duplex is an old man who does not believe in God. His neighbor on the right side was a lady who doesn’t do anything in life except pray, sing and rejoice for the Lord.
Each morning, after waking up, the old man would hear the woman shout, “God is good! Got is great! God will provide!” After that, she would say her morning prayers at the top of her voice and then she would start singing songs of praise the whole morning.
The old man, being an unbeliever, would get so irritated by the noise that he would bang the wall several times hoping to stop the lady from what she is doing. But the lady would just ignore him and continue singing praises to God.
One day, the night before the lady would celebrate her birthday, the old man heard the lady praying. He heard her say, “Lord I praise and magnify you. I know that you are a generous God. I know that nothing is impossible to you and whatever we ask in your name we will receive. Lord, tomorrow is my birthday. In Jesus name, I want to celebrate my birthday by having a cake and fried chicken (always remember, when we pray and ask for something, we need to be specific).
The old man, after hearing the lady, he said to himself, what kind of foolishness. What does she think will happen? Is she expecting to rain cakes and fried chicken from heaven?
So, to insult and make fun of her, early next morning, the old man went out to buy a cake and fried chicken to prove to the lady that there is no God. He silently placed the cake and the fried chicken in main door entrance and watched her from the other side of the fence.
Moments later, he heard the lady singing, “This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made!” As she opened her main door, she was surprised to find out that there it was - a cake and fried chicken - exactly what she prayed for!
She started shouting at the top of her voice, “Praise the Lord! Alleluia! Truly, you are alive and true to your words. When you said ask and you shall receive and if we have faith that our prayer will happen, it happens!
The old man, pop out his head on the fence and shouted – “Total foolishness! Crazy! Your God did not give you anything! To prove to you that there is no God, I heard your prayer last night asking for a cake and fried chicken. I woke up early this morning to buy exactly the things that you asked for to let you know that THERE IS NO GOD!”
The lady started jumping for joy and looked up to the skies and shouted “God is good! You are truly awesome! You have used every resource in the world, EVEN THE DEVIL followed your commandment, just to make sure that I will receive what I asked for!”
The old man ended up being the devil... poor old man.
By the way, speaking of the devil, do you think it’s right to receive gifts if you know it came from the devil or from evil doings? Does the end justify the means?
God is great!
Posted By: Allen Espejo @ 11:44:25 PMGo back to top to Post or View Comments
