The Lord Will Provide

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. PHILIPPIANS 4:19

When Amanda Smith was a little girl in Maryland, her grandmother prayed for years that the children would be set free, and they were. Amanda quotes more than once an old song: in some way or other, the Lord will provide; it may not be my way, it may not be thy way, and yet in His own way, the Lord will provide. She lived most of her life on very little money, much of it without any fixed income at all, and she learned to pray for rent, shoes, bread, fares and passages with the same simplicity she prayed for souls.

Thirteen cents

One of her barest stories is also one of her best. When she first began to feel that God was calling her away from service into His work, her washing dried up. The families she worked for went to the country, and she was reduced to thirteen cents. The tempter told her that with all her talk of trusting the Lord she would end up begging. “It is none of your business,” she answered, “if I do. I belong to the Lord, and if He wants me to beg I’ll do it.”

She went to the grocer on the corner, where she never took anything on credit, laid her money on the counter, and asked for a loaf of bread, a quart of potatoes, three slices of salt pork and a bundle of wood, adding, “this is every cent of money I have between me and death.” He looked at her, said it was not enough, and then went and got everything — and gave her back three cents.

I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. PSALM 37:25

Shoes by faith

Before she went to Salem her shoes were broken in the sole. She told the Lord she was willing to go in them if He wished, but that if she got her feet wet she would be ill. Then she did something that sums up her whole approach. She claimed the shoes by faith, and, as she puts it, put them on as really as ever she put on a pair of shoes in her life; she got up and walked about feeling that she really had them. Three days later, after a meeting, an old man shook her hand and put something in it. At home she found five dollars, counted it three times, and thought she must be asleep. Then a voice reminded her: you prayed about your shoes.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. MARK 11:24

She took that promise literally. It must be said that some later teachers took the same promise and made of it a technique for getting whatever one wanted. She did not. Her prayers were for needs, not luxuries — shoes, rent, a funeral, a passage to where God had sent her — and her faith was always bound up with obedience. She asked because she was doing what God told her and needed what He knew she needed.

I never tell people my need

Her rule, she said, was this: “I never tell people my need; I always make my needs known directly to God.” She gratefully accepted help from many friends, but she refused to hint or to beg. She tells with rueful humour of sitting in a sister’s kitchen at Salem, hungry, while a pot of cabbage boiled on the fire, hinting all she knew how and getting no supper. And she drew the lesson cheerfully: she found out that a good deal of praying fills you up pretty well when you cannot get anything else.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. PHILIPPIANS 4:6

At her first great holiness camp meeting she could not afford to go at all, until a friend asked her why she did not trust the Lord and go. Trust the Lord about her rent? She had never heard of such a thing. She thought a moment and said, I will. She scraped together her fare with ten cents over, missed her train, found herself a quarter short, and had to borrow two dollars from a friend. On the train a gentleman took some of her holiness tracts for his pastor and pressed two dollars on her, and she repaid the loan on Saturday. It was there, she says, that she first began to learn the deep meaning of Ask, and ye shall receive.

When the money did not come

Not every prayer was answered at once. In Liberia she saw native boys drifting about on Sundays and longed to repair a room where she could gather and teach them. She prayed that friends in America would send the money, naming them one by one before the Lord. Weeks passed; steamers came and went; no money came. At last she asked the Lord what it meant, and the answer she heard was blunt: “You are not trusting in Me, you are trusting in America.” She saw it at once, confessed it, and let go of every hope in America. Within a fortnight help began to arrive, from Ireland, from India, and in small sums from home, and she opened her room.

Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm. JEREMIAH 17:5

That is an important corrective within her own story. Faith for provision is not a way of getting God to fund our plans, nor of leaning on friends while calling it faith. It is trust in a Father who knows what we need, and who sometimes withholds until our trust has come back to Him. She held both: a bold expectation that God would meet every real need, and a humble willingness to be corrected.

Glory for nothing

The spirit of all this is best caught in a moment at the Sing Sing camp meeting. She had given her last two dollars for the women of India, and was left with fifty cents. When the collection basket came round for the water tanks, the whisper came to give that too, and the tempter said she would be a fool. She shut her eyes and turned away, but the collector held the basket right under her face. She threw in the fifty cents and said, “Glory to God for nothing, and hallelujah for everything, for I have got Jesus yet.” That evening she found three dollars under her plate.

As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. 2 CORINTHIANS 6:10

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Make a list of your real needs this month, as distinct from your wants. Bring them to God one by one, specifically, as she did.

2. Try her rule for a season: tell God your needs before you tell anyone else, and do not hint.

3. Is there a gift you have been prompted to give that feels too costly? Pray over it, and if the prompting holds, give it with glory to God for nothing.

4. Where have you been trusting in people, reputation or savings rather than in God? Confess it, even if the provision is real.

5. Write down one time God provided for you when you had nothing between you and need. Tell someone about it this week.

A PRAYER

Father, You know what I need before I ask. In some way or other, in Your own way, You will provide.

Teach me to bring You every real need, the rent and the shoes as well as the soul, and to trust You with the answer.

Deliver me from trusting in people and reputation, and from using faith to fund my own plans.

And when I have nothing, let me say with her: glory to God for nothing, and hallelujah for everything, for I have got Jesus yet. Amen.