this is part of a 31 day series on Provision.  To see the first post in the series click here.  To read the entire series click here and read backwards (the first post is listed last, the latest post is listed first-i don’t know how to change that. thank you for grace.)

Hide: 

4. To protect; to keep in safety

In the time of trouble, he shall hide me in his pavilion. Ps.27.

Provide:

 [L. provideo,literally to see before; pro and video, to see.]

5. To foresee; a Latinism. [Not in use.]

 

He sees.  This concept of provision is completely new to me.  and deeply comforting.  He sees before. ……

 

So one place i thought i’d start in this series is a good ole search of the Bible on the word Provide.  this story!?!...i was thinking of it this morning…and here it is in the search.  oh how deeply comforting and affirming.  

The word of the Lord came to [Elijah], saying, “Go away from here and turn eastward, and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. It shall be that you will drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there.” 

So he went and did according to the word of the Lord, for he went and lived by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he would drink from the brook. It happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and stay there; behold, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.”  (1 Kings 17)

 

The Word of the Lord said: “hide yourself by the brook…..I have commanded the ravens….”

The Lord commands his prophet to hide himself by a brook.  he commands His ravens to bring him bread and meat.  he forsees the need.  the need for physical sustenance, and the need to be hid away for a time.  i could almost venture to think he saw this very need when He was forming the brook.  i can picture the comfort thought of in the forming of the rocks, just the right crevices, just the right shapes. and the trees, just the perfect placement for shade.  and the sound of the brook-to calm and soothe and refresh. (ok, so it just says a brook, and not rocks or trees, but this is the way my mind visualizes a place to hide onself and take shelter from the storms.)

He sees how tired we are.   how worn down from the groaning.  the word of the Lord still comes and provides.  He commands and directs.  He knows the need, the real needs.  He’s no butterfly;

(Amy Carmichael writes of letters she’s written to those suffering:

“ All these letters have been written, as one of them tells, at the time the storm fell upon me, not after the coming of the calm.  In the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius we are told that it is in our power to live free from all compulsion in the greatest tranquility of mind, even if wild beasts tear in pieces the members of this kneaded matter which has grown around us. ‘for what hinders the mind, in the midst of all this, from maintaining itself in tranquility?’ But when he wrote that, his kneaded matter was not being torn to pieces.  It was sitting comfortably aloof from the claws of wild beasts; so his composure does not do much for us.  It can, indeed, be exceedingly irritating.  There is more of the pith of life in Satan’s ‘put forth Thine hand now and touch his bone and his flesh’—we understand that.

The toad beneath the harrow knows
Exactly where each toothpoint goes.
The butterfly upon the road
Preaches contentment to that toad.

There can be minutes when the toad is not properly grateful to the butterfly—no, not even if he comes dressed like a very good Christian.  He is upon the road: he isn’t under the harrow; he never was there.”  (Rose from Brier p.14)

No, our Lord is no butterfly.  He sees before.  He provides a hiding place and sustenance.  sometimes He uses ravens and sometimes He uses widows.  with Elijah, he was told to Hide himself before he was told to Arise and go.  For the Lord saw and knew his beloved child’s need. 

and He provided.

i had some other thoughts last night for today’s post.  but the trick of writing everyday is writing of the stuff of everyday.  and today, this is it. these are the words i have for a dear one who has had way too many butterflies flitting about her.  may the Lord grant you shelter in the cleft of a rock and the comfort of His very wings my friend.