In this devotional, we are looking at the last two helps for the season of outward wants. (Please see the last two devotionals if you would like a refresher on them). Here is Flavel’s sixth help:
6. Does it become the children of such a Father to distrust his all-sufficiency, or repine at any of his dispensations? Do you well to question his care and love upon every new exigency? Say, have you not formerly been ashamed of this? Has not your Father’s seasonable provision for you in former difficulties put you to the blush, and made you resolve never more to question his love and care? And yet will you again renew your unworthy suspicions of him? Disingenuous child! reason thus with yourself: “If I perish for want of what is good and needful for me, it must be either because my Father knows not my wants, or has not wherewith to supply them, or regards not what becomes of me. Which of these shall I charge upon him? Not the first: for my Father knows what I have need of. Not the second: for the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; his name is God All-sufficient. Not the last: for as a Father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; the Lord is exceeding pitiful and of tender mercy; he hears the young ravens when they cry:—and will he not hear me? Consider, says Christ, the fowls of the air; not the fowls at the door, that are fed every day by hand, but the fowls of the air that have none to provide for them. Does he feed and clothe his enemies, and will he forget his children? he heard even the cry of Ishmael in distress. O my unbelieving heart, dost thou yet doubt?”
When we learn what God values and why He has us go through outward wants, we often begin to see what He sets before us to do. Better than this, we learn to trust Him even when we have need. God does not value what we so often value, and many of those things we regard as needs are much less so than what he actually provides for us. Far from lacking knowledge of what we need, His providence for you—yes, even at this time—is exactly what you need in this time. If you have a hard time believing this, that really has nothing to do with God’s lack of providence, but a mistaken understanding of what you truly need at this time. Times of want help us to desensitize our hearts to carnal and worthless things, and sensitizes us to Him. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. He has anything and everything that you can ever possibly needs, and supplies what you need in His immeasurable wisdom and fatherly discernment. What, then, is to be our response to times of outward want? “The Lord pitieth them that fear him,” meaning He shows abundant grace and mercy to those who love Him by obeying His commands from the heart. As a father desires loyalty, reverence, and respect from his children (and there is no other one who deserves this more than Yahveh!), so it is that when children give this, then the father can better care for them, shape them, and teach them to follow in God’s ways. The same is true of us when we fear/reverence our heavenly Father. A stubborn and stiff-necked child benefits little from the careful pains and cares of a loving father if he is firm to resist them. Yet, as a child of God, the new heart He has given you is a heart that can be shaped and moulded by Him. So, if you are among the saved, you can yield to His teaching and grow in faith. The One who even diligently cares for His enemies, and for the birds who have comparatively little value, is the same One who provides for you whatever you truly need.
7. Your poverty is not your sin, but your affliction. If you have not by sinful means brought it upon yourself, and if it be but an affliction, it may the more easily be borne. It is hard indeed to bear an affliction coming upon us as the fruit and punishment of sin. When men are under trouble upon that account; they say, ‘O if it were but a single affliction, coming from the hand of God by way of trial, I could bear it; but I have brought it upon myself by sin, it comes as the punishment of sin; the marks of God’s displeasure are upon it: it is the guilt within that troubles and galls more than the want without.’ But it is not so here; therefore you have no reason to be cast down under it.
Suffering for one’s own guilt and sin is perhaps some of the worst suffering a Christian can endure. This happens when a person is living in habitual sin rather than repenting (which means turning from sin). In fact, a life marked by this pattern is a life that has yet to yield to God. If a Christian is habitually sinning, it will only last for a season. But this help is not about suffering for your own sin. Rather, this season is about when God brings outward want upon you to teach and grow you. If this season is not the result of your own sin and doing—in which case this time would be a lesson of discipline from the Father—then you should have good courage to stand up under it. Having outward wants are often used as divine tools, and, far from being a sign of God’s disfavour, often mark time of blessing and humility for His children. Help seven continues regarding many concerns that may enter our minds during this time:
‘But though there be no sting of guilt, yet this condition wants not other stings; as, for instance, the discredit of religion. I cannot comply with my engagements in the world, and thereby religion is likely to suffer.’ It is well you have a heart to discharge every duty; yet if God disable you by providence, it is no discredit to your profession that you do not that which you cannot do, so long as it is your desire and endeavor to do what you can and ought to do; and in this case God’s will is, that lenity and forbearance be exercised toward you.
‘But it grieves me to behold the necessities of others, whom I was wont to relieve and refresh, but now cannot.’ If you cannot, it ceases to be your duty, and God accepts the drawing out of your soul to the hungry in compassion and desire to help them, though you cannot draw forth a full purse to relieve and supply them.
When we ourselves come to have outward need, it is true that we often cannot help with the needs of others. We can often lack the needed resources—like food, water, clothing, time, and energy—to help love other believers and our neighbors as we would otherwise be able to do. Not being able to do those things is never something that God holds against us! How can we give what we do not have? For it is the Lord who provides. The best and honourable thing to do during this time is to do what we can do to provide these things for ourselves and for the love of neighbor. When we do our due diligence to labour, and we still come up short, then we have done our duty for these things. In such times, we can trust in God, knowing that He is working all things out for the good of those who love Him.
‘But I find such a condition full of temptations, a great hinderance in the way to heaven.’ Every condition in the world has its hinderances and attending temptations; and were you in a prosperous condition, you might there meet with more temptations and fewer advantages than you now have; for though I confess poverty as well as prosperity has its temptations, yet I am confident prosperity has not those advantages that poverty has. Here you have an opportunity to discover the sincerity of your love to God, when you can live upon him, find enough in him, and constantly follow him, even when all external inducements and motives fail.
Thus, I have shown you how to keep your heart from the temptations and dangers attending a low condition in the world. When want oppresses and the heart begins to sink, then improve, and bless God for these helps to keep it.
Facing temptations during the season of want are less than they would be if you were amply supplied. In times of want, there are far less distractions from God and far more that leads to Him. If you focus on the truths of these seven points, then even those temptations can be rendered impotent (powerless), and you will come out humbled and stronger in the Lord.
Next time we will be looking at season six: the season of duty.