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Who Is Our Provider?

Playing dominos
Playing dominos

Several months ago I made a commitment to a man in Haiti that we would raise the funds to buy a truck for the 19 children at New Hope Children’s Home so they could go to school in the fall. It is a long walk for them and they are small children so they have not been attending school due to lack of transportation. They were being home schooled, but home schooling in Haiti is not the same as it is in the US. It is not recognized by the government. They do not get credit for this. We saw the need and although I did not know how we would do it, I agreed to do it. I knew if I went ahead and spoke the words out of my mouth and told Pastor Fatton that we would do it, that we had to do it. If I gave him my word, I had to find a way to do it. Well for those of you that don’t know me, I am terrible at raising money. I do not like to ask for help and I would rather work every day at my job for months and pay for it myself than to ask people for help. I guess when I made the commitment, I sort of thought this was what we would have to do.

Today I sat in church and listened as Pastor Ben preached about how God is our provider. It felt as though he was speaking right to me with every word. After church, I watched a dear lady as she wrote a check out for the amount for a truck. Her eyes welled up with tears as she wrote it out. Her voice cracked as she told me “It is such a blessing to be able to give. It makes me feel so good.” As you can imagine, I went into my “hold it together, keep my face as tight as I can so that I don’t let a tear fall” mode! I thanked her and told her that I couldn’t tell her right then and there what this meant to me, but that I would send her a text later and tell her. (She knows me well so she understood that statement and the reasons why I couldn’t speak about it at that time!)

I understand that God always provides. I have seen this so many times. But sometimes, I get off track and start thinking that I am the provider or Robbin is the provider and we stress and work ourselves to death to financially provide for all the things going on in our ministry. I learned today that we have to stop this and let God be the provider. He wants to be that for us and He wants to be that for you.

The precious lady said “It feels so good to give.” I think this is how God feels when He meets a need for us. I saw Jesus through her tears and I heard Him through her voice today. Jesus was saying “I AM providing for you, I AM providing for the children, and I AM providing for Pastor Fatton and his ministry, because I AM. I think He wants so badly to be our provider if we will just stop trying to figure it all out on our own and stop trying to do it all on our own. I want to start relying on Him fully. I think we will get further that way.