Consider the Ravens

When you walk with God, you should never worry about whether or not something is going to work out.

Because He has the perfect plan for your life.

The Ancient of Days sets our lives apart and sustains us with His providential provision.

If you found a hundred-dollar bill on the ground in some empty parking lot, that might be what He uses to sustain you and help you purchase something you need.

Things like that are winks from on high.

It doesn’t always happen, but I believe it happens for a reason (not trying to be cliché here).

Jesus used an interesting point to tell us never to worry about how He provides for us.

“Consider the ravens, that they sow not, nor reap, to which there is no barn nor storehouse, and God doth nourish them; how much better are ye than the fowls” (Luke 12:24 [YLT])?

I used the YLT version because it has a bit of poetic depth to it, and God’s provision is a poetic truth of the Scriptures.

(Where was he going with that? That Bible is the hardest to read!)

And in the Book of Job, the oldest book in the Bible, we have something interesting that I want to connect to this statement.

“… ‘who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens’” (Job 35:11 [ESV])?

The context in Job is about men asking where their Maker is and the pride of evil men, but the point I’m trying to make here is that we are wiser than the birds.

So, Jesus is telling us that just as the ravens are provided for in nature, so, too, are we as humans able to make it in this life because of God’s provision.

What I am not saying is that people shouldn’t work hard to provide for themselves or their families.

Sometimes that provision comes in the form of someone else needing a service from you, from an entrepreneurial venture, or from aligning paths in some other way.

You might need your house painted, and you might have a contractor in mind because a friend of yours had a contractor work on his or her house in the past.

As normal as that seems, God may have orchestrated their meeting so that you one day might have your house painted when you needed it.

God providing for us does not always mean being fed by ravens, like the prophet Elijah had occur on his way to the widow.

But I often wonder if Jesus is referring to both the story of Elijah and the fact that God provides for all creatures in saying that statement there in the Gospel of Luke.

If God makes us wiser than the birds, then there is no sense in thinking we won’t be provided for.

I’ve learned to have an abundance mentality when it comes to money—seeing God as the source of wealth, as Deuteronomy tells us.

Many people who grew up poor or with an employment mindset see money as scarce, when that’s not the case.

There is no situation where we can’t make it. This isn’t a Joel Osteen sermon, but sometimes even he has a point that resonates and is biblically sound.

And I hope you understand that His provision isn’t always financial. It could be a friend who waters the soul, or a new love on the horizon after a spell of heartbreak.

Seek Him first, and He will offer you what you need, and even more than enough to help others receive what they need.

Be more faithful in your faith than the birds of the air.

If God gives them food, uses ravens to feed His own in the wild, and wants us to have the faith of little children, we won’t go without or need to worry about anything at all.

Blessings, and may your days be filled with shalom.