Don’t Rent That Clown Suit Just Yet…

This is from The Blazing Center blog, which is maintained by a father-son pastor duo from Pennsylvania.

Don’t Rent That Clown Suit Just Yet… 

by Mark Altrogge

We’re funny creatures, us humans.  We ask our heavenly Father to provide for us then we try to figure out how he’s going to do it.

We pray, then our wheels begin to turn.  Let’s see, I could get a second job.  I could sell my signed Justin Bieber poster on eBay.  I could rent a clown suit and do kids’ parties…

And when we can’t see how he will be able to answer our prayers, we worry.  Our fertile imaginations construct all kinds of “what if’s” in our mind.  What if I don’t have the money to pay my tuition?  Then what if I can’t get a loan?  And I have to get a job flipping burgers?  And what if I don’t make enough doing that and I have to start living under a bridge and turn to a life of crime?  And then get caught and put in prison next to an axe murderer?

Worry is essentially us trying to figure out the future.  Or how God will work in the future.  And when we don’t see how God can do it, we get fearful.  If we can’t see exactly how he’ll provide, or deliver or heal us,
we worry.

But God’s not dependent on means.  He’s not dependent on our company or the economy to provide for us. He doesn’t need doctors, medicine or technology.  He often uses means, but doesn’t need them.  He can heal with a word.  Or put a gold coin in the mouth of a fish.  Or multiply a few loaves and fishes.

“We never consider that God can open the eyes of the blind with clay and spittle, he can work above, beyond, and even contrary to means… “Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet the valley shall be filled with water” (2 Kings 3:17).  God would have us to depend on him though we do not see how the thing may be brought about.” Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

Did you catch that last sentence?

“God would have us to depend on him though we do not see how the thing may be brought about.”

Someday in heaven we’ll get to trace all God’s providences.  Won’t that be fun?  We’ll say see, here’s the day I offered that prayer.  On that same day, God gave a man in South Africa a new idea and he did this….that changed the way people did this…which created a market for this.  Which caused my boss to transfer me across the country….which led to me meeting my wife…

Part of the joy of heaven will be following all God’s providences and worshiping him for his infinite wisdom and goodness.

Our job is to depend.  To trust.  To pray and thank God for his faithfulness.  To rest.  God’s job is to run the universe and care for his children.  He’s pretty good at it.  And he’s got ways of answering our prayers we don’t even know about.  So don’t rent that clown suit just yet…