We see from reading the Bible that God helps us under extraordinary circumstances. But what would an extraordinary circumstance be? Safe to say, it would be a circumstance beyond our making.
If you find there is no food in your house, would you wait for God to fill your refrigerator and your cupboards? Would you wait for Him to knock on your door wearing a store uniform, saying, ‘Food package for you’? Chances are that if you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to realize that hell might freeze over before that happens, under ordinary circumstances, and it would be best if you drove to the supermarket.
But, you might say, did Jesus not feed a multitude of people on several occasions, turning a few loaves of bread and a few pieces of fish into enough to feed thousands? Yes he did, but it was to serve a divine purpose, making the circumstances extraordinary. In John 6:9-13 Jesus feeds thousands that way in one place, since there wasn’t enough food to go around. It’s possible that all those people, left to their own devices, could have gotten the food themselves, sort of like if you had nothing to eat in your house you would go food shopping. But the reason for Jesus’ extraordinary generosity is revealed in John 6:14 which says, “When the people saw [what Jesus] had done, they said, ‘This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!’” So it is evident that Jesus fed the crowd to get their attention and convince them that he came to them on behalf of God.
Is there anywhere in the Bible that explains an instance where God drops food into the hands of a person for no apparent reason, or into the hands of a person who can get the food themselves under ordinary circumstances? We know that in Exodus, God rains manna in the Hebrews in the wilderness since they didn’t have enough food. But again, there was an extraordinary purpose to that. God wanted to keep the Hebrews together and committed to going to the Promised Land, and if they didn’t have enough food for themselves the chances are they would have either scattered and gone their separate ways, or they would have returned to Egypt. In fact, because of the hardships, Moses people were considering going back to Egypt.
Going back to the scenario where you find nothing in your house to eat, it is unlikely you would abandon your home because you have no food, when you can get it. It is also unlikely that someone would be at your door, identifying themselves as a prophet, though the Bible does tell us we could someday be unknowingly entertaining angels.
But let’s say you cannot leave your house without help because you are old or disabled. Or let’s say you are poor and cannot otherwise afford to feed yourself. The Bible tells us that under extraordinary circumstances, which include circumstances in which, despite our being “wonderfully made” as referred to in Psalm 139:14, when we cannot get what we need, we ask God for help and we wait for Him. Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
As God answered the cries of the Hebrews who were enslaved in Egypt, and of the Hebrews who were tormented by the Philistines in Samuel’s day, so He would answer our prayers. But we should know that God operates on His time, not ours. With God, as explained in Psalm 90:4 and later on in 2 Peter 3:8, one day is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. There is no set timetable for when God will respond. We don’t know, for instance, how much time elapses between the Hebrews’ cry to God, and his responding in Exodus. The Bible doesn’t say something like, ‘Three weeks (or months or years) after the Hebrews cried to God, He called on Moses to bring his people out of Egypt.’
Where is God when you need Him? Where is He when you are too poor or too disabled to get food? He is in your neighbors who come by to help. He is in the governing authorities who govern in His Name and who give you the means to feed yourself or to have someone feed you if necessary. He is in the doctors who appear to miraculously save patients that people who knew them thought were gonners. He is in the lawyers who commit themselves to, and succeed in, freeing people who were unjustly accused, convicted and incarcerated. He is in our troops who defend our country and maintain the free world. He was with our troops on D-Day, as he was with the Hebrews who defeated the Philistines.
And under certain circumstances he is in the winning lottery ticket that someone has. That is not to say to devote your life buying lottery tickets, but if God feels you need a boost, and you happened to have bought a lottery ticket that you put aside and perhaps forgot about, who knows? Someone I talked with said he prayed to God to have a house that was big enough for his family, since he couldn’t afford one on his own. One day he was driving in the country, going somewhere, and he saw an old man standing outside a rather large house, and he stopped and asked him for directions. After giving him directions, the old man told him to look at the house he has. Then he said he can’t take care of this house on his own, so he decided to offer it, for free, to the first person who came along, which happened to be the man with the big family. His offer was taken up, and the man now had a house for them! You might say that God was in the old man at that point.
It's amazing the things that faith can do, but in having faith we must have the patience to wait for the Lord. As we are told in Romans 8:28, with Him, all things work for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.
If you find there is no food in your house, would you wait for God to fill your refrigerator and your cupboards? Would you wait for Him to knock on your door wearing a store uniform, saying, ‘Food package for you’? Chances are that if you’re old enough to drive, you’re old enough to realize that hell might freeze over before that happens, under ordinary circumstances, and it would be best if you drove to the supermarket.
But, you might say, did Jesus not feed a multitude of people on several occasions, turning a few loaves of bread and a few pieces of fish into enough to feed thousands? Yes he did, but it was to serve a divine purpose, making the circumstances extraordinary. In John 6:9-13 Jesus feeds thousands that way in one place, since there wasn’t enough food to go around. It’s possible that all those people, left to their own devices, could have gotten the food themselves, sort of like if you had nothing to eat in your house you would go food shopping. But the reason for Jesus’ extraordinary generosity is revealed in John 6:14 which says, “When the people saw [what Jesus] had done, they said, ‘This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!’” So it is evident that Jesus fed the crowd to get their attention and convince them that he came to them on behalf of God.
Is there anywhere in the Bible that explains an instance where God drops food into the hands of a person for no apparent reason, or into the hands of a person who can get the food themselves under ordinary circumstances? We know that in Exodus, God rains manna in the Hebrews in the wilderness since they didn’t have enough food. But again, there was an extraordinary purpose to that. God wanted to keep the Hebrews together and committed to going to the Promised Land, and if they didn’t have enough food for themselves the chances are they would have either scattered and gone their separate ways, or they would have returned to Egypt. In fact, because of the hardships, Moses people were considering going back to Egypt.
Going back to the scenario where you find nothing in your house to eat, it is unlikely you would abandon your home because you have no food, when you can get it. It is also unlikely that someone would be at your door, identifying themselves as a prophet, though the Bible does tell us we could someday be unknowingly entertaining angels.
But let’s say you cannot leave your house without help because you are old or disabled. Or let’s say you are poor and cannot otherwise afford to feed yourself. The Bible tells us that under extraordinary circumstances, which include circumstances in which, despite our being “wonderfully made” as referred to in Psalm 139:14, when we cannot get what we need, we ask God for help and we wait for Him. Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”
As God answered the cries of the Hebrews who were enslaved in Egypt, and of the Hebrews who were tormented by the Philistines in Samuel’s day, so He would answer our prayers. But we should know that God operates on His time, not ours. With God, as explained in Psalm 90:4 and later on in 2 Peter 3:8, one day is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. There is no set timetable for when God will respond. We don’t know, for instance, how much time elapses between the Hebrews’ cry to God, and his responding in Exodus. The Bible doesn’t say something like, ‘Three weeks (or months or years) after the Hebrews cried to God, He called on Moses to bring his people out of Egypt.’
Where is God when you need Him? Where is He when you are too poor or too disabled to get food? He is in your neighbors who come by to help. He is in the governing authorities who govern in His Name and who give you the means to feed yourself or to have someone feed you if necessary. He is in the doctors who appear to miraculously save patients that people who knew them thought were gonners. He is in the lawyers who commit themselves to, and succeed in, freeing people who were unjustly accused, convicted and incarcerated. He is in our troops who defend our country and maintain the free world. He was with our troops on D-Day, as he was with the Hebrews who defeated the Philistines.
And under certain circumstances he is in the winning lottery ticket that someone has. That is not to say to devote your life buying lottery tickets, but if God feels you need a boost, and you happened to have bought a lottery ticket that you put aside and perhaps forgot about, who knows? Someone I talked with said he prayed to God to have a house that was big enough for his family, since he couldn’t afford one on his own. One day he was driving in the country, going somewhere, and he saw an old man standing outside a rather large house, and he stopped and asked him for directions. After giving him directions, the old man told him to look at the house he has. Then he said he can’t take care of this house on his own, so he decided to offer it, for free, to the first person who came along, which happened to be the man with the big family. His offer was taken up, and the man now had a house for them! You might say that God was in the old man at that point.
It's amazing the things that faith can do, but in having faith we must have the patience to wait for the Lord. As we are told in Romans 8:28, with Him, all things work for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.
