Is Your Faith Big Enough To Trust God For Your Needs?

“And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?” – Matthew 6:30. 

I think it is safe to say that everyone has a story, everyone has a struggle, and everyone has needs. There will be times in every one of our lives when we will experience a need of some type. Perhaps that need will be material in nature, or it may be emotional and, at other times, needs of a physical nature will arise. Or we may have spiritual needs.

The natural reaction is for us to try to meet our own needs because we live in a very self-sufficient world. But when we have the ability and the power to help ourselves, then we do not really have a need, do we? But what happens when we can’t meet the need? When we have exhausted every resource and we are left with the reality that this is beyond us, what then?

The answer to getting the needs of life met comes from Jesus Himself. His answer was this, “And Jesus answering saith unto them, “Have faith in God.” Mark 11:22-24 says: “Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.”   

In 1 Kings 17 we read the story of Elijah and the widow. Imagine how Elijah felt when his brook dried up and the ravens quit bringing food. So in 1 Kings 17:8-9, “the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. I have instructed a widow there to feed you.”  That didn’t seem like much of a solution. Widows were poor, and had enough trouble feeding themselves, let alone feeding others. But, Elijah knew that God knew more about taking care of prophets than Elijah did and he just went. If we sit around and worry about what’s happening in our life and trying to figure out what God is doing, we will go crazy. We can’t understand God and we can’t figure Him out. Isaiah 55:9 reminds us of that: ”For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”  

In 1 Kings 17:14, Elijah gives the widow woman an 11 word promise, “For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says…”  In other words the widow had the promise of God to back up her faith. And so do we today. David in Psalm 37:25 says, “Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children begging for bread.” If God said that He would look after your need, then you can have trust in Him to meet those needs, protect you, rescue you, be with you, answer you, satisfy you, and give you eternal life. 

What else do we need?

Discussion Questions:

1. Is the whole idea of what we want and what God gives us difficult for you to comprehend? Why?
2. It is important to base our faith on the promises of the Bible rather than on our own feelings, needs and wants. Why is that so important?
3. Read Philippians 4:9. What does God supplying all your needs mean to you? 
4. What can we do this week to better trust God to meet our needs?