Sometimes the problem is not that God has not provided. Sometimes we are simply looking in the wrong direction.
Today, driving back from Northwest Arkansas Mall after getting some hair things for my girls, I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude.
Not because everything is perfect.
Far from it.
There are still things I am trusting God for. There are prayers on my heart that need answers. There are situations where, unless God comes through, I honestly don’t know how they will work out.
But as I drove, I suddenly thought:
Lord, I am so blessed.
I get to raise my children in America.
And I realized something humbling: somewhere in this world, someone is praying for the very life I am living.
Someone would look at the things I am worried about and still say, Lord, if only You could take me where she is.
My “Lord, I need a miracle” may be somebody else’s “Lord, if You could only answer me like that.”
And gratitude filled my heart.
Then I came to a junction.
There was a homeless man standing by the traffic lights.
He looked tired. Beaten down by life.
I looked at him and wondered, How many people actually stop? How many people see him?
Then I remembered that I had some dollar bills in the car. I had changed money because I needed coins for laundry, and I knew I probably wouldn’t need all of it.
I’ll give him five dollars.
It wasn’t much.
But it was something.
There was only one problem.
He was standing beside the outer lane, and I was in the lane next to it. There was another vehicle between us.
So I tried to get his attention.
I looked at him.
Please look this way.
He didn’t.
He was completely focused on the other lane.
I tried again.
Look at me.
Nothing.
His eyes were fixed in the direction from which he apparently expected help to come.
Perhaps experience had taught him that people in that lane were more likely to give. Perhaps he had received something there before. Perhaps statistically, from where he was standing, that was simply the most sensible place to look.
But I was sitting there with five dollars in my hand.
For him.
And he never saw me.
Then the light changed.
Traffic began moving.
I was at the front of the lights, so I couldn’t stop without holding everyone behind me.
And just like that, I drove away.
Still holding his five dollars.
And almost immediately, a thought hit me.
What if that’s me?
What if God has provision coming toward me, but I am staring so intently in the direction I have decided it should come from that I don’t see Him moving somewhere else?
What if I have calculated the most probable lane?
The most likely person.
The most logical opportunity.
The job.
The contract.
The connection.
The ministry.
The business.
The application.
The person who promised to help.
And because that is where help came from before—or because human reasoning tells me that is where help should come from—I keep staring at that lane.
Meanwhile, God is saying:
Look this way.
That man wasn’t doing anything wrong by watching for help.
He simply couldn’t see every direction at once.
And sometimes neither can we.
We pray for God’s provision and then unconsciously tell God what vehicle He should use to deliver it.
We say, Lord, provide.
But in our minds we have already decided:
It will probably come through this person.
This opportunity.
This job.
This door.
This country.
This plan.
And perhaps God is sitting one lane over with something already in His hand.
Today my prayer changed.
At first, I prayed:
Lord, help me to look in the right direction at the right time.
But then I realized there was an even better prayer:
Lord, help me to keep looking in Your direction.
Because His direction may change.
His provision may come through a raven one season and a widow the next.
It may come through a job.
It may come through a stranger.
It may come through an idea.
It may come through a door I hadn’t even considered knocking on.
It may come through something that, statistically, doesn’t make any sense.
The source is not the lane.
The source is God.
Philippians 4:19 says:
“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”
It does not say how He will do it.
It tells me Who will do it.
And Psalm 121:1–2 asks the question my heart needed today:
“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
My help doesn’t ultimately come from the mountain.
It comes from the One who made the mountain.
Psalm 125:2 gives another beautiful picture:
“As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people both now and forevermore.”
Perhaps that is why I don’t have to panic when one direction looks empty.
God surrounds me.
He is not limited to the lane I am watching.
And Jeremiah gives an even stronger warning:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the LORD.”
—Jeremiah 17:5
This doesn’t mean people are bad or that God doesn’t use people. He does.
Today, for a few seconds at a traffic light, He wanted to use me.
But people are channels. God is the source.
And I don’t want to become so attached to one channel that I miss the Source opening another one.
So today, strangely enough, a homeless man who never even spoke to me preached a sermon to me at a traffic light.
He never received my five dollars.
But he left me with something worth far more.
And perhaps tomorrow, when I am tempted to stare anxiously at the lane where I think my answer should be coming from, I will remember him.
And I will pray:
Father, don’t let me become so focused on what seems probable that I miss what You are doing.
Don’t let yesterday’s provision determine where I expect tomorrow’s provision to come from.
Don’t let statistics become louder than Your voice.
Don’t let me put my trust in people, systems, opportunities or plans.
Keep my eyes on You.
And when You whisper, Look this way, give me the sensitivity to turn my head before the light changes.
My help comes from the Lord.
My provision comes from the Lord.
And sometimes, the answer I have been praying for may already be closer than I think.
I just need to be looking toward Him.
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