Is God taking care of me right now? Yes. Not only in a crisis and not only when you remember to ask him. God is holding your life together today, in the ordinary hours when nothing feels like an emergency. Most Christians would agree with that sentence without hesitating, because we already believe God is in control of all things. Actually believing he is taking care of you right now is harder, and the gap between the two is easy to miss.
What does the Bible promise about God taking care of me?
Recently, I went on a walk and was thinking about a big life choice my husband and I had been talking about. The decision we had been discussing had the potential to shake up our family life seismically, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
As the blocks melted away, I reasoned, “Well, even if we choose the riskier path, God will take care of us. He won’t leave us hanging!” I comforted myself by remembering the Bible passage: “Though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand. I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be a blessing” (Psalm 37:24–26).
Bolstered by those promises from God, I had a little bounce in my step as I headed for home, but that’s when the proverbial anvil dropped.
Is God taking care of me right now or only in a crisis?
I almost stopped in my tracks when I realized I had been believing in a sneaky little bit of heresy.
You see, as I was contemplating taking a life risk, I fully believed that God would show up and help me in a time of trouble or perceived hardship. Nothing wrong with that. However, whom did I believe was taking care of me right now?
Well … me, of course!
If you would have asked me point-blank any day of my life, “Do you believe that God is in control of all things?” I would have answered you with an emphatic, “Yes!” And I do believe that!
But unbeknownst even to me, in my heart of hearts, part of me had been believing that I was the one taking care of myself right now. After all, I make my own money. I run my own household. I take care of my own health. I raise my own children. I tend to my own marriage. I take care of my own relationships. Currently, I’m the one taking care of me, and it’s only in a crisis that God would step in and help me out, right?
Wrong.
Why relying on self is a quiet form of pride
It’s so easy to slip into a prideful attitude of the heart like I did. Even when we are at our best and trying our hardest, we can’t get away from the fact that we are sinful human beings. As it says in Isaiah 64:6, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”
The devil works so hard during our lives on this earth to rob us of our faith and steal us away from our promised home in heaven, in both grandiose and insidiously subtle ways. He “prowls around like a roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8) and makes the good look bad and the bad look good, because “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14).
How do I stop trusting myself and start trusting in God?
The world rewards proud, boastful attitudes, and it’s hard not to be influenced by the culture around us. First John 2:16 reminds us where that repellent attitude comes from: “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”
Turn away from all that. The devil, the world, and our own hearts tempt us to stray from God, so run from these things. Flee from pride. Embrace humility even if the world thinks it’s foolish. Never forget that God is the only One who makes daily life possible. No praise should come to us; God deserves praise for every good thing in our lives. As the psalm writer says, “Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness” (Psalm 115:1).
Every good thing in my life comes from God
God is the only One who can bless you with employment, a home, health, children, marriages, family, and friends. God is the One who daily grants you not just air in your lungs, life in your limbs, and blood pumping through your veins, but he loved you so much that he let his Son, Jesus, face the death sentence you and I deserve so we can spend eternity in a world with no more crying or death or pain.
Our prideful hearts merit nothing but death, but God is so ridiculously in love with us that he gave us a free ticket to heaven, borne on the back of Jesus, and is guiding us and holding us up every second of our lives.
God is taking care of you now, and he always will
Repent with me and remember that God is in control of all things, big and small. He is taking care of you now, he’s taking care of you if you take a risk, and he will never leave your side until you see him face-to-face in heaven someday.
Praise God!
