“Providence” is one of those words which does not appear in the Bible but which expresses a great biblical truth. In general it refers to the holy, all-powerful, and wise way in which God upholds, directs, and governs everything in creation, from the greatest to the least. The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines it as “His most holy, wise and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions.” From hanging the earth on nothing (Job 26:7) to numbering the hairs on our head (Matt. 10:30), from making springs gush into the valleys (Ps. 104:10) to providing food for all flesh (Ps. 136:25), God’s providence is “wonderful in counsel” and “excellent in working” (Isa. 28:29). The comprehensive scope of its actions there­fore rules out all possibility of chance, fate, fortune, or luck. “His kingdom ruleth over all” (Ps. 103:19).

How is our faith to be exercised in connection with this all-encompassing providence of God?

1. We are to observe the working of God’s providence to ourselves and others. After a broad survey of many of its wonders, David counsels: “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the LORD” (Ps. 107:43). Com­ments William Plumer: “This Psalm calls us to the study of providence.” It is God who gives war and peace, sick­ness and health, rain and sunshine, prosperity and adversity. If we cannot see this, it is not because there is nothing to see, but because we are blind. Blessed is he who sees God in history and in nature as well as in revelation. We should even take note of His solemn dealings with notoriously wicked men and women.
   Most of all, we should notice in detail how the Lord deals with us, not only in our hearts, but also in our outward circumstances. If we were as observant as we should be, we would notice many deliverances from temptation and enemies, as well as chastisements for specific sins we have committed. Indeed, if we acknowl­edge Him in all our ways, God promises to direct our paths (Prov. 3:6). So Anne Ross Cousin could versify Samuel Rutherford’s faith in writing:

With mercy and with judgment
My web of time He wove,
And aye the dews of sorrow
Were lustered with His love.

This is a great work of faith, to be aware of the hand of God at work everywhere.

2. We are to turn God’s providential dealings into prayer. Both when Peter was imprisoned and when he and John were preserved from imprisonment, the church turned God’s providence into prayer (Acts 12:5; 4:23-30). In the first case God’s people interceded; in the second they gave thanks. We notice too how Scripture records Asa’s sin in taking his disease only to the doctors rather than first and foremost to the Lord (2 Chron. 16:12). One old divine says that we should take our toothache, our children’s ailments, and our animals’ sicknesses to God in prayer. What are Thanks­givings but prayerful professions of gratitude for God’s continued provision? Faith, then, will make us turn God’s providences into prayer.
3. We are to put the best construction on God’s deal­ings with us in providence. Faith will enable us to do this even when His providences seem to contradict His promises. We have a wonderful instance of this in the case of the Shunnamite woman (2 Kings 4). God had promised her a much-longed-for son (v. 16). After fulfilling His promise, He then took him away (v. 20). But when asked how it was with her, her husband and the child, she replied: “It is well.” What serene confidence in the God of providence! This is the same kind of faith Job exercised following God’s permission of Satan to wreak havoc on his family and flocks: “The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). Abraham actually uses the word that forms the basis of the term “providence” when Isaac asked him where the sacrifice is. “God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering,” he replied (Gen. 22:8). Clearly, his faith saw far beyond his imme­diate distressing circumstances.

Similarly, in the midst of all his sufferings for Christ, Paul could affirm: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Comments Thomas Watson: “This is as Jacob’s staff in the hand of faith, with which we may walk cheerfully to the mount of God.” Since it includes the worst things as well as the best, he adds: “What will ... make us content, if this will not?” So he concludes: “All the various dealings of God with His children do by a special providence turn to their good.” This is no less than Scripture itself says: “All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant” (Ps. 25:10). Surely the gentle William Cowper discovered this during a life of considerable mental suffering when he could write:

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

Thus faith puts the best construction on God’s provi­dential dealings with us.

4. We will refuse to make God’s providence the rule for our obedience. This is as much a fruit of faith as observing, praying over, and putting the best construction on God’s providences. For God has made His Word, and not His providence, the only rule of our faith. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:20). “Make God’s statutes your counsellors,” notes Matthew Henry, “and you will be counselled aright.”
   Some have criticized Oliver Cromwell for seeking direction from providence rather than from Scripture. But when the Protector invoked providence, it was to confirm what Scripture had already taught him; namely, that he was engaged in a just war for the benefit of all, and that God was with Him, as He had promised. And who will deny that he was right? Oliver never lost a battle, and his reign established a period of peace and stability whose fruits Britains parliamentary democracy still enjoys today. By contrast, those who have made every changing providence their rule have become vulnerable to every wild spiritual hunch that suggests itself to them, with chaotic results in their lives. While noting, acknowledging, and acquiescing in providence, faith does not make it the rule for our obedience.
5. Lastly, we must always link God’s providence with the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not only does He “uphold all things by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3), and cause them to “consist” or hold together (Col. 1:17); it is for His sake that all God’s providential purposes and actions move towards their final consummation. Because He humbled Himself to the death of the cross, God has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name above every name, that at His name every knee shall bow, whether in heaven, on earth or in hell, and every tongue shall confess Him as Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:6-11).

This is the true significance of Christ alone being able to open the book of providence (Rev. 5). He controls all history in the name of His enthroned Father. He is at work in the world-wide spread of His gospel, in the devastation of men and nations, in bringing justice and peace to warring factions, in all our individ­ual and communal relationships. And He does all this with a view to bringing in the kingdom of God in its final and perfect form. The whole scope of Psalm 110 is to teach us this. The entire universe, comments Edward Reynolds, has been given to Christ “in our nature, in our behalf, and as our head,” so that while we should “praise God in and through his Son” for all present “victories, deliverances, refreshments, experiences of God’s power and goodness” in providence, we should also let this majestic fact “draw our thoughts and affections from earth unto heaven” and towards the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thus the grace of faith will connect even the smallest acts in providence with the consummation of all things at our Lord’s Second Coming.

In short, we will not yield to a philosophy of either fate or chance, but will believe that the course of both the universe and our own infinitesimal lives are controlled by God in the interests of His dear Son, who by His humiliation earned the right to become the Head of a new redeemed humanity, dwelling in a new heaven and a new earth, in which righteousness reigns instead of sin. Surely we must say with the Psalmist: “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord” (Ps. 107:43).