Yehovah-Yireh

  

Yesterday was one of those days, to say the least!  I won’t bore you with the whole long list of things that went wrong but I need to name a few…

I had this really bad cold and instead of getting better, yesterday I got worse….terrible ear ache all day long, and to top it off we had no water, so dirty dishes and dirty laundry everywhere and we are expecting guests today!  So, I was freaking out a bit when my dear husband said that not too worry, God will help us through it all.  On the outside I was saying Yes, of course, but on the inside I was losing it.

Worry, as Ann Voskamp puts it so well, is belief gone wrong.

I was not merely worrying a bit, I was in a STATE of worrying!  And this State was not good at all.

In our weekly meetings with the people in our village, we have been going through the Old Testament stories that shows God’s plan for this world – stories about Adam and Eve, Cain, Noah, Babel, Abraham, Joseph, Moses …. Stories that tell us Who God is, what He wants of us and How He is really.  On top of that I am reading Ann Voskamp’s book on Advent as well….you know those times when God has to hammer in the truths from a few different directions all at once to get your attention?  Well, this is one of those times!

In this morning’s reading she also mentioned Abraham and the story about nearly sacrificing his son.  Abraham named the place where God provided a ram in Isaac’s place just that – God Provides.  Yehovah-Yireh.

Now, I know this story.  I had just written a lesson on it.  I am going through all these stories of how God provided everything for the Israelites in the desert – I have read, written down and listened to this story even in a few different languages!  (How hard is it for God to get my attention?)  In any case, here we were without WATER.  Does that sound familiar?  I always hoped I would have been a Caleb or a Joshua, but sadly it seems I would have been just one more unbelieving little Israelite!  Sigh. 

Without water - that life-giving-very-important-thing!  Did I go directly to God?  No.  I worried.  Worried about the dirty laundry and dirty dishes and wondering if should give the guests only one group towel and order them to all shower at the same time?  yip, that was me.  And I was ready to give it all up.  To pack a bag (the suitcases were too hard to get to in my current state!) and slowly walk away down the dirt road.  Once again, sigh.

Yehovah-Yireh also means God sees or will see to it.  And that is what He did.  Not me, I didn’t do much except fret and worry.  He Saw.  He gave a Plan, like He always does. 

A bit of background is needed here – we have a well that was nearly dry a couple of weeks ago and so we put in a pump by the small river to at least water the trees and garden, esp the vegetable garden.  But I did question the wisdom of such a large investment just before the rainy season when the outside world will be wetter than wet!  But we did it and now I see God had a plan all along – we can now use the river water (after a struggle to clean it a bit) in our house as well.  He Saw and He Helped.

And so I guess, every place where we have ever lived I could have named Yehovah-Yireh.  I can honestly say over all these years He has always Provided and He always Sees To It in what we need.  I just need to get it into my thick head to run to Him first of all, to TRUST Him and to know that He knows and cares.  I need to believe and stop worrying.

Bella, humbled by the Patience and Grace of God, truly His Grace is enough.