On God’s Providence
by Stephen Rankin
As many Christians have done when facing challenges, they find encouragement from verses like these from Psalm 139:
Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
A feature of Hebrew poetry comes through, repeating a word then expanding its impact with other words. “Your hand shall lead me. Your right hand shall hold me fast.” No matter where we are, no matter what our circumstance, God’s Spirit is with us. This is an unqualified, even daring, awareness of God’s promise.
It’s easy enough for people to recognize that God’s presence permeates all creation. We can call this general providence. Hebrews 1:3 says that God, through the Son, “sustains all things by his powerful word.” Everybody knows that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, even if they don’t know why Jesus said it.
Many people also know at least a part of Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good.” Unfortunately, they hang on to only half of what Paul actually says, and that half, just quoted, decays into the truism, “Everything happens for a reason.” This idea comes perilously close to a kind of fatalism that has nothing to do with God’s providence.
In his sermon, “On Divine Providence,” John Wesley preached: “There is scarce any doctrine in the whole compass of revelation, which is of deeper importance than this. And, at the same time, there is scarce any that is so little regarded, and perhaps so little understood.” Let’s take a moment to contemplate God’s gracious providence.
On what grounds could Wesley state how important the doctrine of divine providence is, and in the same breath lament how little it is regarded and understood? Because too many people settle for the half-truth, that God is present to the whole creation, but, as Wesley notes, they don’t acknowledge and may even deny, that God ever does anything specific in someone’s life. This view is ultimately very dissatisfying. It’s a little bit like saying that God loves everyone. Well, yes, he does, but so what? How does God love Sam, who seems to be sailing along fabulously, and likewise love Martha, whose life is absolutely falling apart? Similarly, an acknowledgement of God’s general providence comes close to denying that God ever does anything specific in a person’s real-life circumstance. It would not be hard to imagine a person thinking, “Well, great, it’s nice to know that God is with me, but he sure doesn’t seem to be doing much!”
Wesley tackles this attitude with the theme verse for the sermon, Luke 12:7: “But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” The point is not literally that God is counting every hair on your head, and not losing track of any that, like mine, have fallen out. The point is that God takes this degree of care, and this specific an action, in your life. He is engaged with your life, not simply keeping the whole universe going. If you read this sermon, you see that Mr. Wesley gets rather philosophical, arguing that it’s illogical to accept general providence and deny particular providence. He says, in effect, that you can’t have general providence without a bunch of specific providences that make up God’s general providence. Think genus and species. The logic is compelling, but let’s not lose his main point: God is specifically concerned with you, and everything that’s going on with you.
How might we begin to recognize more clearly how God’s particular providence might appear in our lives? I’ll answer with a brief testimony. Like some people do, when I’m facing a daunting challenge, and I turn my eyes away from God’s faithfulness and obsess about my weaknesses, I can catastrophize the outcomes. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and in the worst possible way. (Can I get an Amen!?)
I recently had this happen. For a day, I really struggled with something and wound up working myself into a lather. Now, had you bumped into me, you would not have seen anything different, except, perhaps, if you knew me well, you might have wondered if I was a little pre-occupied with something. But inside, my emotions swirled like a Kansas tornado. Some firm admonition from my wife began to snap me out of it. I decided to meditate on the aforementioned words from Psalm 139, to pray them. I resolved that, when the troubling feelings returned, I would resist the temptation to fixate and slip into fear and to concentrate on the truth of God’s active, loving providence for me. Eventually, God calmed the storm.
True, full abandonment to our Lord’s gracious providence is our blessed privilege. His presence, his powerful right hand are with us, not to make all the scary or disappointing or infuriating things go away but to hold us steady through them. And not only to hold us steady, but to take us deeper in communion with him, and to grow stronger in the process. This divine action is a significant feature of God’s sanctifying grace.
We can take much comfort in remembering that Jesus had his own storms. Luke tells us that, on the night before his betrayal, he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood. I know that not all the ancient New Testament manuscripts include this description. It is nonetheless true to Jesus’ experience at that moment. And what did he pray? “Not my will but yours be done.” Lesson learned.
The next time we pray the Wesley Covenant Prayer, let’s think about God’s gracious providence. “I am no longer my own, but Thine…I freely and heartily yield all things to Thy pleasure and disposal.” May we keep pressing on to the fullness of God’s saving grace.
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