CALLING AND PROVISION

If God calls us to do something, He will also provide. 

One of the burdens God placed in the heart of George Mueller was to board, clothe and scripturally educate destitute children who had lost both parents. To accomplish this task, he had child-like faith, trusting that God will supply all his needs (Philippians 4:19). 

Through earnest prayers, he received millions to build orphanages, never asking anyone directly for money. He merely trusted God to move people to send him whatever he needed. He never borrowed. Yet neither he nor the orphans were ever hungry.

Nehemiah, a cupbearer to a foreign king, answered the call of God to go back to his homeland to rebuild the broken down walls of Jerusalem. As a result of his obedience to God’s call, he experienced His blessing and provision.

He enjoyed the favour of the foreign king whom he served. The latter granted to Nehemiah letters guaranteeing safe passage from Persia to Judah. Furthermore, the king provided timber for the reconstruction project. Even a foreign king can be instrumental in the unfolding of God’s plan when there is obedience to His calling.

When there was a long drought in the land, God used ravens and a widow to feed the prophet Elijah. How God met his need can be pretty unconventional—the ravens were unclean and the widow was extremely poor. But he managed to survive.

If we believe that God has a definite plan for our lives—and that He is able to guide us in discovering His calling for our lives—we are on the right track. If we then fulfil this calling, we will experience His provision.

When God gives you a vision, He also grants you His provision.

Do you know why God will meet the needs of His children?

Because He is a loving heavenly Father. If we who are evil know how to give good things to our children, how much more will Abba Father give good gifts to those who are His children (Luke 11:13).

Furthermore, those who are obedient to His calling will be tremendously blessed—not necessarily in material terms. They are the apple of our heavenly Father’s eye. “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29). 

       To recapitulate:

• Do we believe God has a unique plan for us—that our destiny was predetermined while we were yet in our mother’s womb, and that each of us has been endowed with distinctive gifts and resources (Jeremiah 1:5)?

• Do we believe that God is able to guide us concerning His will and calling for our lives (Proverbs 3:5-6, Psalm 32: 8-9)?

• Do we believe that He will provide? (Philippians 4:19). Hudson Taylor, the missionary who founded China Inland Mission, said, “God’s work done in God’s way will not lack God’s supply.”

Acting on Presumption 

We should not expect God to provide if we presumptuously choose a particular vocation or venture without His guidance and blessing.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

(James 4:13-15).

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