I am the 5th of 5 brothers and we are all somewhat of a mess – I mean, we’re boys. #3 (Tim) and I were talking about trusting in God’s provision the other day. He has had some deep struggles lately and we have been put on extreme lean living lately. Both of us realized that our trust in God had been limited to trusting in Him as a goto Guy, not a complete Sovereign Provider. We were living a form of functional deism.

Let me explain.

Deism is the belief that a Great Designer (God) made all in the world, set it in motion and then stepped away, never to get involved in the daily workings until he decided to end the machine. It was the view of many so-called Christian founding fathers of America. Some of them referred to this belief as the Great Watchmaker view.

I see this in functional form all the time in churches, especially modern fundamentalist and catholic groups. They function as if God gave them the tools to get things done and then they say, “We’ll take it from here.” There is little to no daily dependence, very little grace and a lot of dogma. Just look at the guy who has it all figured out – functional deist. Soon they will war, then divide, then oppress then disclude – all in the name of “truth.” The only problem is that it will be their truth and not the truth of God – and again, there will be a stark absence for the need of and the giving of grace . . . the great gift that got us here in the first place.

So, Tim and I . . . we are realizing in our discussion on work, or the lack thereof, that we have been treating God like a really powerful HR guy. If He would just get us the job, we’d take it from there. Oh, now it is shrouded well in responsibility – I want to be a hard worker and serve in my role as a husband and father faithfully; humility – I need Him to open doors and provide good work; even dependence-like talk – “The Lord is teaching me dependence right now.” But, we both admitted that in our minds, there was a line where we :just wanted God to get us to (said point) that job and then we would do it from there.

What about depending on Him in the job? What about depending on Him during suffering. What about trusting in the Lord will ALL my heart? (Proverbs 3:5-8)

I don’t have it all figured out – in fact very little.

I need Him for everything.

I am grass.

I am withering.

But, the Lord is everlasting and in Him, so will I be – by His design, His will, His timing . . .

His glory.