Trusting God

“These all look to You to give them their food at the proper time. When You give it to them, they gather it up; when You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good things.” Psalm 104:27-28
We can learn a lot from observing creation. Jesus pointed to many examples of things in creation to teach us spiritual truths. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them... See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these” (Matt. 6:26-29). God also used creation as an extended object lesson to teach Job about His sovereignty (see Job 38-41).
Here’s one thing we can learn from observing the animals: to trust God to provide for us. Every now and then, I’ll throw some old bread out onto my back lawn, and the birds come and eat it. It doesn’t take them long to find it and all come flying in. But what do they do on the days it’s not there? Of course, they find food somewhere else; but they don’t stress and worry that they won’t find it. We might put it down to a ‘survival instinct’, but what they are really doing is trusting God to provide.
Do we trust God to provide for us? – and not just the big things, but the small things too? God is intimately interested in us. He cares about providing for our needs more than He does for the birds (see Mat. 10:29-31). The source of all our stress and worry is ourselves, and our lack of trust that God will in fact provide. To change this requires a change of mindset – it’s not an instant thing. When those thoughts of doubt and worry come, you can begin to recognise them, stop them in their tracks, and say, ‘Perhaps; but no matter what happens, God will provide for me.’