The Lord Will Provide

Recently in my Infertility and Loss Support Group we explored the various names of God.  One name that came to mind recently was the name Jehovah-Jerih which means God our provider.  It comes from the story in Genesis 22:14 where Abraham’s faith is tested when he’s asked to sacrifice his son Isaac.    Abraham was stopped by an angel who told him not to hurt Isaac.  Then we read in verse 13:

“Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket.  So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son.  Abraham named the place Jehovah-Jerih which means ‘The Lord will provide’).  To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided’.”

Just in time, God provided what Abraham needed.  In looking further into the Hebrew translation of the word provider I found that, “some scholars argue that ‘God will see to it’ or ‘God will see it through’ captures the meaning more accurately, emphasizing God's active involvement and fulfillment of the promise.”  God knew that he would test Abraham’s faith, but God was also the active agent in seeing to it that the ram was provided in Isaac’s place.

I’ve been listening the song by Passion and Landon Wolfe recently called “The Lord Will Provide”.  It’s been a great reminder to me of not only how God is providing to me in this current season of life, but how he’s provided for myself and my family in the past.  One such way that God provided was in summer last year.  We had a few instances where our power had gone out and it wasn’t a local power outage, it was just our home.  So we would reset our breakers and all would be well.  This went on a couple more times when I finally asked that the local power company come out to inspect our main breaker.  Upon inspection they quickly confirmed that our main breaker was faulty and we needed a new one.  But the downside was that for safety reasons, they had to lock out our main breaker until we had proof of repair.  The reason being was that it we tried to power up our home we were risking an electrical fire as they could smell smoke and heat coming from the breaker when they powered it back on.  The reality of their words sank in; had I not called them for inspection there may have been an electrical fire from that breaker that I would have had no idea about until it may have been too late. 

It's tough to bear summertime in Georgia without AC so we packed our bags to stay at a local hotel until the breaker could be repaired the next day.  Soon enough we had our home up and running again with power.  And I kept the old breaker as a reminder of how God provided; this way in the form of keeping us safe and out of harm’s way from a potentially devasting housefire.

You might also be humbled to stop and think of the variety of ways that God has been (and is) your provider.  This reflection will also give hope and trust for your future to know that no matter what may come your way, you can trust and know that God will provide what you need, when you need it.  I hope you’re encouraged to have confidence to know that God will see you through and provide what you need for each and every day. 

Link to the song: The Lord Will Provide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vokR7AQs2u8