Jehovah Jireh, God Our ProviderMuestra

“I was so burnt out after this year, so weary of everything. Had no more capacity and was just completely drained. I am here getting fresh air and doing what I love with no rigid structure, just playing, talking, and being. God is showing me that, where He is present, there is joy and strength and peace and enough for this next day.”

After an incredibly demanding four years of undergraduate study, my oldest daughter recently graduated with highest honors. After graduation, she had the remarkable opportunity to serve as a music missionary in Austria.

While there, as she stood on a mountainside, breathing in the air of the Alps, she came to a momentous realization. Jehovah Jireh provides REST for His people. He is the restorer of our souls, and He gives us rest.

In today’s reading, we see that after a significant victory against the prophets of Baal, Elijah runs from wicked Queen Jezebel and is deeply anguished and weary. During Elijah’s depression, Jehovah Jireh, our Provider, gives the prophet time for rest and refreshment. Elijah has a chance to rest and eat twice before continuing his journey. God affords him rest.

Jesus did the same for His disciples. In Mark 6:31, He told His disciples to take time with Him alone to rest awhile because they hadn’t even had time to stop and eat with so many demands of ministry. Jesus, Jehovah Jireh in human flesh, provided His disciples with time for rest.

That’s why I am devoting the seventh day of this reading plan to the subject of rest. The Lord rested on the seventh day of creation, not because He was tired, but because He modeled the setting aside of a Sabbath day for worship and rejuvenating rest. It’s a lesson I wish I had learned earlier in my Christian life. Rest is biblical. Jehovah Jireh provides it for our well-being.

As one who suffers from lupus (in an albeit mild form), I know how critical it is that I rest. In fact, sleep can often prevent me from experiencing the worst or worsening of my lupus symptoms.

Rather than resenting the weakness that requires me to rest, I am learning to take those moments of sleep as a way God reveals Himself as Jehovah Rapha, my healer (the subject of a future Bible reading plan).

In every case, whether it is in providing for our physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, or other needs, our God is Jehovah Jireh, our ultimate provider. We can seek Him daily, as the Apostle Paul did, to supply all of our needs “according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).