Providing in Ways Unimaginable

July 25, 2021

There was a song by a popular rock group entitled “Get Out of Your Own Way”.  Sometimes I feel that I need to think of this when I play golf.  Too often I begin to overanalyze the shot.  I think about the sand trap or the water hazard.  I think about how far to take my back swing.  My best shots happen when I get out of my head, when I do not overanalyze.  So often when I stand over the ball for a long time, I miss the shot terribly.  I have to get out of my own way.  I have to get out of the way of what I am thinking and just enjoy the game.  I am best when I am in the present moment, just letting it happen.

The disciples never saw it coming.  They only knew what they knew.  They had just a few provisions for themselves.  They never saw it coming.  Jesus could take what they had and multiply it.  That day in a deserted place He opened their eyes to how God can provide.  He opened their hearts so they would know God could provide with abundance.  Jesus knew the crowds were hungering for more of His time, more of His words and they longed to see His power to heal and transform a life.  Now with everything in place, Jesus took the experience to a new level.  He showed that God provides for both bodily and spiritual needs.

It is in unimaginable ways that God longs to provide for us.  The unthinkable happens whenever we celebrate the Eucharist.  Jesus enters the Bread.  Jesus enters the wine.  Unimaginable is this gift.  So often we are tempted to be narrow in our approach to how God will take care of us and provide for us.  We look around and worry about worldly things or where the next meal is going to come from.  We worry about retirement costs, educational costs and how to keep afloat with new needs.  God longs to have us enter the unimaginable, a place where what Jesus can provide is like nothing of this world.

We have come through an unpredictable year.  There is so much life around us.  God has never stopped providing for us.  God has never stopped being present to us.  Unimaginable are the new vehicles we are now using.  From cell phones to YouTube videos, from parking lot celebrations to Zoom and Google providing virtual meeting space, the unthinkable happened.  Were we still fed?  Were we ever abandoned?  Did God lead us to find new ways that were before unimaginable?

At the heart and core of this is the desire of God.  What is at the heart and core of this is the passion God has for us to be embraced by the unimaginable.  His ways are not our ways.  From the deepest depth to the highest heights, God longs to provide for us.  May we never get in the way.

Father John Ouper