Leviticus 25:21-22
“I will command my blessing for you in the sixth year so that it may yield the produce for three years, and you may sow the eighth year and eat from that sixth year’s produce—old produce. Until you bring in the ninth year’s produce, you may eat old produce.”
Humanity is given to worry!
I do not understand why it is my natural inclination to turn to worry whenever things aren’t looking like I had envisioned. I am trying to train myself to turn to God right away in prayer, but unfortunately I do still, at times, turn to anxiety and worry first. I will spend time caught up in this worry for far too long before I take those thoughts captive (2 Cor 10:5) and start applying the Truths of God’s Word to each situation. So let’s look at what God’s Word says about His provision for us.
God’s provision is complete.
God provides ALL that we need. When He delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, He provided for them Manna from Heaven, His Presence (cloud by day fire by night), leadership, healing, law, protection, rest, etc. They were a people that were used to having to look to Pharoah for their needs, but now God was establishing Himself as the Provider of their needs! He provided clothes for them that didn’t wear out for forty years of wandering through the desert! So, we can see that the God who never changes is amazing and able to accomplish provision that completely covers our needs.
Jesus assures every one of us that if we are weary and heavily burdened He will give us rest if we come to Him (Matt 11:28-30). God wants us to be completely dependent upon Him and He wants to give us a life that is abundant and overflowing with His provisions (John 10:10). He tells us to cast our cares upon him for He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).
God’s provision is meant to stop worry.
Jesus tells the people on the Sermon on the Mount, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are? And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life?” (Matt 6:25-27). He even goes on to telling them that they are a people of little faith (Matt 6:30). I do not want to be considered a person of little faith when Jesus speaks of me, I want to be able to rest in His provisions for me and my family by faith!
In Matthew 6:33-34 Jesus gives us the answer to the question, “Well, how do I go about living my life without worrying?”. “But above all pursue His kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.” Pursue God and all the things that we were once worried about will be taken care of!
God’s provision goes beyond our comprehension.
In our main verse for today (Lev 25:21-22), God tells His children that they are supposed to take a year off. Every 7 years there was supposed to be a Sabbatical year where the Israelites were not supposed to work the land. Now some of us might be thinking, “So what.”, but I want to remind you that these people didn’t have a grocery store within 10 minutes from there house, or pizza delivery options, they needed to work the land in order to have food for their family to eat! Don’t work the land for a year meant that they were not going to have food. They had a couple of choices to make; 1.) Be obedient 2.) Be rebellious 3.) Worry and stress out.
Let’s see what God told them concerning this command to let the land rest: “I will command My blessing for you in the sixth year so that it may yield the produce for three years, and you may sow the eighth year and eat from that sixth year’s produce—old produce. Until you bring in the ninth year’s produce, you may eat old produce.” Did you catch that? God told them, if you listen to Me and trust Me, I will provide enough provision in the 6th year that it will last you 3 years until the 9th years provision is harvested!
There is no way to comprehend how years 1-5 produced its crops as usual, but the 6th year of crops was multiplied so much that it produced enough for the next 3 years, other than the fact that when we do things by God’s commands and design miracles will happen where we think we will have lack! God operates from His limitless supply. We only know limits, God does not know limits. His economy is always record breaking!
The disciples were with Jesus when they seen incomprehensible miracles of God’s provision before their very eyes (see Jesus feeding thousands twice Mark 6:44 & Mark 8:9, a catch of fish that was more than their nets could handle Luke 5:4-6, water into wine John 2:9, Raising Lazarus from the dead John 11:43, etc.) , and yet they still doubted His ability to care for them (Matt. 8:25, Mark 14:50))! How much more do we need to trust in our God to do what looks to be unthinkable?
God’s provision is more than just physical
Jesus Christ is the picture of God’s ultimate and complete act of provision! He provided protection and salvation from the wrath of God upon us. We were in need of a deliverer (even if we didn’t realize it), and God supplied his Son to provide the forgiveness, love, and intercession that we all needed. That is the best act of provision that He has ever accomplished in my humble opinion, and I will be forever grateful!
Everything that God does in the physical realm is to point us to the Spiritual! The reason for this act of provision in Leviticus 25 by the Lord is to make sure that the people of Israel were honoring His command to allow for rest. Rest is not only physical, it is a spiritual principle too (Read Heb. 4:9-10, also will be my next Blog post). God has established rest as a vital part of our walk of faith! His provision supplies what we would automatically assume would be lost if we don’t continue in our work (some of us need to hear this who are working 7 days a week, or 2-3 jobs, with the worry that if we don’t our needs will not be met), both physically and spiritually.
I heard it said one time that driven-ness is when we strive after things because we feel our provision completely depends upon us, diligence is when we give a 100% of our effort and trust God for what we feel is lacking after we do that. Diligence is knowing when to stop and focus on the important things in our lives, and I know this might surprise us but work is not the most important thing in life! We are called to be diligent (showing care and conscientiousness in our work) , but not driven (relentlessly compelled by the need to accomplish). Diligence is healthy, driven-ness is unhealthy (most times). Check out Proverbs 21:5, “The plans of the diligent lead only to plenty, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.”
It is super critical for us to realize that God’s desire for us is to be stress free (Phil 4:6) and rested in our spirits. That doesn’t mean that we will not go through hard times, or that we will not be tired because we have been working hard. What that means is that we will have a child-like dependance upon Him to provide for us in all of life’s trials.
Trusting in God is the way in which to overcome anxiety and worry. It is a spirit thing! It is a trust thing! It is a disposition that chooses prayer over anxiety, hope over despair, trust over worry, rest over striving, peace over chaos.
I don’t know what it is that has you worried right now, or where you need God to provide for your needs, but I do know that He is able and willing to meet your requests when you come to Him in full assurance that He is your Provider. Whether it is your health, finances, relationships, or anything else, commit to following His ways and I promise that you will experience the provision of the Lord in ways that you never thought possible!
God bless you.