Our Father Knows
I remember when my son was a little bit younger he started playing with legos for the first time. He was old enough not to put them in his mouth, but he didn’t know how to build things on his own, so he and I would sit down and build stuff.
We never built anything fancy. Usually it was just stacking a few different colored legos on top of one another and pretending like they were Toy Story Characters, but for him and me it was awesome.
I remember one day I was working and I could hear my son crying downstairs. One of the little towers we built had fallen apart and he couldn’t get the legos to align correctly to rebuild them.
But, he wouldn’t let Marissa or me help him at all! Instead he kept screaming and crying every time he tried and failed to put it back together. I remember saying, “Buddy, if you just let me help you we can fix this quick! Trust me!” But he said, “No, no, no, no, no!”
Finally after a little while he wore himself out and handed me his legos and in like two seconds I had the towers put back together. When I handed them back to him you would’ve thought it was Christmas morning he was so excited!
And then we had that talk. “If you let me I can help you, but if you don’t let me help you then there’s not a lot I can do. I’ll sit here with you while you cry, but I can’t fix anything unless you let me.”
Tonight, as I’m sitting here writing this, I’m realizing how often I recognize myself in him. I’m that kid who has to get done kicking and screaming before I’ll turn to my Father in heaven.
Maybe you can identify with this too, but I trust God. I really do. I believe His ways are perfect and righteous. I trust His knowledge and wisdom more than my own, and I know He can see the entire path when I can barely see where to take my next step. I don’t expect God to always provide two-second fixes like I could do for my son with the legos, but I do believe that God is always working all things according to His own good purposes even when I can’t see it.
Yet, in the realness of life, when things start to fall apart and I don’t know what to do, I usually have to get to the end of myself before I even begin to rely on God apart from a quick second or minute of prayer. It’s when I’m done looking for my own way and I’ve failed to fix something on my own. That’s when I turn to God.
But, that’s not what the Bible teaches me to do. And it’s not what the Bible teaches us to do.
We can and should bring things to God while we’re still trying to figure them out. We can ask for His help and guidance before we’ve exhausted every possibility. We can pray while we make that phone call we’re dreading or checking that bill we can’t bring ourselves to open or have that difficult conversation. We can come before God as we’re figuring out our church budget and what financial faithfulness looks like for all of us.
And I need that reminder. Because sometimes I’ll pray about something, and I mean really meaningfully pray. But, then I’ll spend the rest of the day acting like the whole thing depends on me.
Take a few minutes to read Matthew 6:25-34.
Jesus is talking about real things that we all actually need. Food. Something to drink. Clothes to wear. These are concerns all of us face at different times in life, and Jesus tells us that our heavenly Father knows we need them.
Our heavenly Father knows we need them.
He knows what we’re carrying in our homes. He knows what we’re facing as a church. He knows the things we’ve talked about with other people and the things we’re trying to figure out on our own.
And we can bring those things before Him now, in this second, even while we’re still unsure of what comes next.
And then, in verse 33, Jesus tells us to seek His kingdom and righteousness first.
That gives us something to do in the in-between. We keep seeking Jesus’ way, His kingdom and righteousness, even when we can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel yet.
We keep our eyes on Jesus when life gives us every reason to look away. We don’t have to wait until we can see how God is answering before we take the next faithful step. Faithfulness is about following Jesus in those in-between moments. When we’re still worried and can’t see God’s way yet, we keep looking toward Him. We keep our eyes on Him.
Prayers like, “God, how do we follow You with this because I really don’t know how?” “God, how do we care for one another here, because I don’t even know how to care for myself?” “What’s the next step we can take, because I can’t see the way?”
For our church, that means we’re asking God to provide for the financial needs we talked about Sunday. We’re asking Him to help us close the gap and keep this church going. And we’re also asking Him to give us wisdom, help us recognize how and what we can contribute, and show us where someone among us needs help too.
We can pray and look at the budget. We can trust God and make a plan. We can ask Him to provide and be willing to participate in how He does that.
And we can do those things while we’re unsure of everything is going to work itself out.
Jesus ends this passage by reminding us that today has enough trouble of its own. And man, some days I know exactly what that means and I’m sure you do too.
We can spend so much time trying to figure out every possible thing that might happen tomorrow that we wear ourselves out today. I know I do that all the time. But we can bring tomorrow before God and ask Him to help us follow Him in what’s actually in front of us right now.
We can do this as individuals. We can do this as families. We can do this as a church.
So here’s three things I’m praying through today and maybe you can join me in that.
God, we need Your provision. You know what it takes to keep this church going, and You know what each of our families is carrying. We’re asking You to meet those needs. Help us be honest about them and willing to receive help.
God, help us trust You with what keeps weighing on us. When we finish praying and start carrying the whole thing ourselves again, help us turn back toward You. Remind us that You know, You care, and we can keep coming to You.
God, show us what faithfulness looks like today. Give us wisdom for the decisions in front of us. Help us recognize where we can give, where we can serve, and where we need to ask for help. Then help us follow through.
Our heavenly Father knows what we need.
We can bring it before Him now. We can bring it before Him again tomorrow. And we can keep following Him together while we’re figuring out what comes next.
