and yet He still provides

**The day after I was getting home from Georgia for the first time in 3 months I was asked to speak at my youth group about what I had learned. I asked the Lord and he gave me this topic. Last minute, leadership wasn’t able to make the event so it was canceled. BUT I had still made an outline on the subject. The Lord nudged me to still share it on the blog and I just forgot- until today a friend asked me how the talk went and it reminded me that I wanted to still share these thoughts. Here’s a little about what I learned about God as provider this fall! 

comforter, satisfier, enough, giver of abundance

• I just lived in a tent for two months
• My clothes had literal mold growing on them because I washed them in a bucket once a week and hung them up to dry in the Georgia humidity
• I only used a porta john 
• And filled up my water bottle with a hose the whole time
• The last two weeks I have been in quarantine because I had covid *at the time

I had no control 
And yet these have been the best 3 months of my life.

I asked God what I should talk about and he reminded me that I have been learning about who he is as a provider. 
Imagine this. The creator of the universe is so unbelievably intentional that he knows how many threads are in your shirt, and what you’re going to be thinking about when you doze off in 5 minutes. Our Abba of everything wants to be BEST friends with me. I am the apple of his eye. His greatest desire. All day when I am thinking about food, or stressed about how to make organize my plans, he is just chillin- waiting for me to turn my thoughts to him. I imagine him just resting his chin on his hands, humming, just waiting until I am done with whatever I am doing to invite him in it or spend time with him. He LOVES US WOAH
Can you think of the best birthday present you ever got? It may have been a trip, or a guitar, a painting, or a phone. Like woah, whoever gave the gift may have had to put aside any standing conflict with you to get the gift for you that you might not see for another month. Well you can imagine how much they love you to do that for you?
Y’all can imagine, if someone loves you that much, imagine what God would do for you. if the GOD of all loves us that incredibly much, he would take care of us right? He would just want us to lean on him because he can provide

Matthew 7:11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

He would just want us to lean on him because he can provide
Let me tell you, I’ve had to lean on him. I have little to no control over what meal comes next and when, where I am sleeping the next night (I’ve been living out a backpack and slept in 2 campsites, 1 church, a house, a business building, and 5 different rooms), what clothes I wear (when I have had to throw out multiple due to mold)
I have had no control. But is control a good thing? Is control what I want? Are my greatest desires those of knowing where I sleep tomorrow and what meal I get next or are they to be sleeping where the Lord has intentionally put me tomorrow and eating whichever meal the Lord has put in front of me?

Psalm 107:9 for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.
With good things? What is the best thing you can think of? Is it the knowledge of the Lord? Is it Jesus being so close he is inside me? is it to die to myself (Galatians 2:20) so that the lord can fill my soul? He promises to fill the hungry of good things, those who are searching, those who feel a little empty inside, those who are never satisfied. He gives them the most satisfying thing, himself. If y’all know the story of the samaritan woman at the well in John 4, he says he is the living water, and those who drink from this water will never get thirsty again. He is provider. 

Mat 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Why not invite the Lord into everything you do? It’s all from him anyway, the Lord is Lord of all and he is going to fulfill his will, we just get to partner with him and be a part of his plan. We do not do the healing when we pray over someone, we just get to choose into being a part of the Lord’s will. He calls us righteous, he gives these opportunities to us. For he has predestined us, (Romans 8: 28-30) he has gone before us, he walks beside us, he watches behind us, and is in us right now. We just get to be a part of his plan, we may lead someone in a prayer of salvation, be part of the moment when the enter our family and start their eternity, but we weren’t the ones granting their salvation. Yet, we get to witness of one the most beautiful moments because we may have listened to God and walked over to that person to ask if they knew Jesus. We GET these moments. For some of us right now that might seem like the best thing you could be a part of, for others when we read (Psalm 37:4) he knows and gives us the the desires of our hearts, we might think alright Lord where’s my 500K? But when we seek first the kingdom of God we are listening to him more, we are seeing how being a child of the Lord means getting his blessings everyday. It means being able to be examples of his goodness in every breath, in every step.Therefore, we get to learn more about him and be more like him, and our desires begin to morph into his desires. Which may be getting to see his beloved choose into salvation and joining the kingdom, not 500k. 
Ok moving on haha

Psalm 22:26 The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord will praise him—may your hearts live forever!

The poor sometimes means those who do not have the money to buy food. But in many cases he talks about those poor in spirit, for when we find him and pick up our cross to let him invade and take over us we desire to praise him more and more each day. 

 Psalm 84:11-12 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, how blessed is the man who trusts in You!

Right now I am accepted and deferred to Wheaton College, a great Christian College in Wheaton Illinois to study a sociology major. I felt confirmation of the Lord in choosing the college, and in the major. But man, it’s expensive. All I can do right now is trust, trust that if the Lord wants me there he will provide. That is my prayer. My prayer is not that he will magically give me a full ride, but that he will provide. He does not withhold his best plans from us. If he wants me there, my prayer will have a yes and amen that probably doesn’t look predicable, either way he will have one for me. (2 Cor 1:20 ). Our Lord works in the best and unexpected ways. He might send me into diving deeper into his calling for me and spending more time with him in Georgia next year, and call people to donate when I fundraiser. He may still call me to Wheaton and student loans, he may call me to a different major at a different college. Whatever and whenever his yes and amen is, it is the best one. THANKS GOD for your faithfulness.

**More verses I was deciding on whether I should speak about but I’m going to let them speak for themselves!

• Luke 12:24 Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest, they don’t have storerooms or barns, but God feeds them. And you are worth much more than birds. 
  
• Psalm 145:15-16 The eyes of all look to you in hope; you give them their food as they need it. When you open your hand, you satisfy the hunger and thirst of every living thing.
• 1 Peter 4:11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
• 2 Corinthians 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;
• John 14:14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
• Matthew 7:7 Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. 
• Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.