I’ve been remembering my first steps with God and thinking about friends who have recently become Christ-followers. When I became a Christian on June 1, 1978, I didn’t know much about God. I knew that He loved me and sent His Son to die for me so that I could have life to the full. My eyes were suddenly opened to the spiritual wrestling match that had gone on to deliver me, safe and sound, to God’s door. For the first time I connected the dots of all the different people who shared with me about Christ and all the ways God protected, guided, and provided for me.
It’s true for every new believer. They can look back over their life and see ways that God was loving them, guiding, protecting, speaking, even waving at them. I’m here! Over here! That’s Me, loving you! I sent that person to shine a light for you. I sent those friends to be truth for you! I see it clear as day for my friends new to the faith. God has been wooing them all along.
At the end of his life, Moses recounted the ways God cared for him and the nation of Israel. He said of Israel: “God found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, So the Lord alone led him, and there was no foreign god with him.” (Deuteronomy 32:10-12)
God found many of us in a desert land. Oh, it might have looked fine on the outside, but the inside was an empty wasteland. As Moses says, God encircled us, instructed us, and kept us as the precious apple of His eye. Like an eagle builds and fluffs a nest for tender young, so God hovered over each of us and carried us up into His protective care.
There is a provision in the Spirit of God, so rich it is hard to describe. My outer world, swirling with Coronavirus worries, is in stark contrast with the beauty and provision in my inner world. Moses said that God would give the produce of the fields, honey from a rock, and milk and meat from the flock and the choicest wheat and wine. God takes good care of our physical needs. Emotionally, spiritually, relationally Christ cancels out our fear, our dread, our hatred, and fills us with goodness, love, and faith. Where we were a “howling wilderness” inside, now we are filled with the choicest provisions.
Have you recounted the many ways God made a way for you? My friend, take time today to remember God’s goodness in your life and give Him praise.
