Jehovah Jireh

Wednesdays mark a mid-point through our week.

I always know the benefit of the chance to pause and to join with others in worship. It's not long - a mere half hour or so - but those moments of worship together are manna to the soul.

We've quite a large number of elderly folk for whom that sort of service works well. Right time of day, and right length of time. Plus there's a shared lunch afterwards The full package: fuel for the soul and the body. What we all need, no matter our age or stage.

It's another service to prepare for, of course. And there are all sorts of things on the go today, with much to be done with a view to the time on Friday with the children from the school, and people to be seen, and issues to be worked through.

And the 'annual meeting' of the congregation at night to be prepared for too.

There aren't that many out at the meeting tonight. I'm never quite sure why that's so. People have busy lives, I know, and the prospect of another evening out is often not attractive one small bit.

But it's good to take stock from time to time. And in doing so tonight for the first time in all of the years I've been here it's clear that we're now being obliged to be looking in faith to the Lord. The sums don't add up in terms of our giving these days. We're having to look to the Lord to provide.

We've found ourselves constrained by the Lord to appoint a Development Ministries Leader. But when you check our income for last year and factor in a salary for this new post - well, you're left asking the sort of question Isaac asked his Dad when climbing Mount Moriah.

I can see the fire and the wood, okay, Dad. "But where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"

Translated into our own situation - Where's the money to pay for this post?

An awkward question for Dad to be having to answer. Abraham was very clear about God's call. This is what the Lord had said to do.

It made no sense from a merely human point of view, it simply didn't add up. Sometimes that's the way it is in following Christ.

But the call of God was clear. And so the answer that he gave his son was pretty clear as well. "God himself will provide..."

It became a pivotal moment in the life of Abraham's family: a foundational truth in the way they lived their lives.

They called that place The Lord Will Provide.

That's where we're at ourselves these days. And it's no bad place to be. Scary, for sure. There must have been a sick feeling in the pit of Abraham's stomach. Humanly this was him pressing the self-destruct button.

But that dying to self and living entirely for Christ is the platform for his resurrecting power to be released.

Hudson Taylor, the pioneering missionary to China, had two plaques on his sitting room wall, I seem to recall. One said Ebenezer - "hitherto the Lord has helped us." The other said Jehovah Jireh - "the Lord will provide."

He's not let us down in the past. We'll trust him for the future!

Are you up for the ride?