Walk in His Providence - Act the Providence

Act the Providence of God

Perhaps, for some of us, the difficulty lies here: we expect to react to the providence of God, but not to act the providence of God.

Some of us live as though providence were something only to react to. We wait for a clear, providential open door, and then we react to that providence by walking through the doorway. But as we’ve seen, God has planned for some doors to open only as we push them. He has planned for us to act His providence.

Paul gives us the clearest biblical expression of this dynamic in Philippians 2:12-13: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Notice: Our work does not follow God’s work. Rather, our work is the simultaneous effect of God’s work. Or as John Piper writes, “What Paul makes plain here is how fully our own effort is called into action. We do not wait for the miracle; we act the miracle” (Providence, 652).

Sometimes, to be sure, God is pleased to place some good work right in our lap. Perhaps someone really does ask about the hope that is in us, or the hard conversation we need to have opens easily and naturally. In moments like these, we do indeed react to God’s providence. But God can be just as active in us when our effort is fully involved: when we invite a neighbor over to study the Bible together, or when we arrange a time and place for the difficult talk.

We need not wait for something unmistakably divine, something unquestionably providential, before we work out our salvation in all kinds of obedience. Instead, we need only see some good work to do, entrust ourselves to God through earnest prayer, work hard in conscious dependence on him, and then, once finished, turn around and say with Paul, “It was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). And thus we act the providence of God.

Imagine Good

In His providence, God has prepared good works for us to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). But many of them will not come as we passively drift beneath God’s providence. They will come to us, instead, as we strain our renewed minds, bend our born-again imaginations, and fashion possibilities in the factory of our new hearts — knowing that every good resolve is a spark of his providence.

So look around you. Nothing about your life is an accident. You are who you are, what you are, where you are, because of the all-pervasive providence of God. He has given you whatever talents you have, in His wisdom, for such a time as this — so that you would add a stroke to the canvas in front of you, chisel away at the statue you see, speak and act in the drama you’re in, so that this world looks a little more like the work of art God is redeeming it to be.

There are neighbors to befriend, children to disciple, churches to plant, crisis-pregnancy centers to serve, and a thousand tasks at our jobs to do with excellence and love. And how will we know if God, in His providence, has opened a door for any of these opportunities? We will pray and turn the handle.

S.Hb.