The Trinity Pt. 1

For the next three weeks in youth group we are taking time to study the Trinity. This is a tough topic that is sometimes hard for our small human minds to comprehend. I readily admit I don't understand the Trinity as much as I'd like. However, I do seem to learn more each time when I take time to study it.

Rather than try to explain how God can exist as one God in three forms, we're spending our series looking at how each form of the Trinity interacts with humanity. This week we examined God the Father and how he relates to us as our Provider.

Why does God provide?
Reading through the Bible, it is evident that God loves us and wants us to have a relationship with him. This is why he provides for us. The Garden of Eden is a perfect (literally) example of how God provides. Adam and Eve had everything they ever needed in life, even a personal relationship with God, right at their fingertips. But, they chose to disobey God in Genesis 3 and sin entered the picture.

Immediately the world experienced tension. Will God destroy this now fallen creation and start over or do something else? He did something else.

God explained to Adam and Even how things were going to be different now that they'd sin. And then he did something extraordinary: God made clothes for them. It seems like such a small, unimportant thing, but it's crucial to the story. AFTER Adam and Eve sinned, God displayed that he would still continue to provide for them. After all, he still loved them and still wanted a relationship with them. This is great news for me, too. Even when I mess up and fall short of God's plan for me, he still loves me and still provides for me.

How does God provide?
Again, reading through the Bible, we see that God doesn't provide everything for humans all at once. He makes it a habit of giving us what we need each and every day. There is no better picture of this than in Exodus 15 & 16, when God provides his people with manna. They were literally trusting God each and every day for their daily food. He could have given them 40 years worth of food at once. But through providing for them each and every day, their relationship with God grew because of the trust that developed. Don't forget, God wants to have a relationship with us. This is accomplished much better when we constantly return to him to meet our needs. At times it can frustrate us, but in the long run our relationship with God benefits.

What does God provide?
God is more concerned with meeting our needs than our wants. A great example of this is in Genesis 37-50, the story of the life of Joseph. You can make a strong argument that as Joseph is sold into slavery, falsely accused of rape, thrown into prison, and forgotten about, God is not meeting the needs of Joseph. But as you continue on in the story and see how God wove all that together to provide a way for Joseph's family to survive a famine, it becomes clear that God was providing all along.

I imagine that if Joseph got to choose his life story, he would have picked something quite different. He probably even questioned during those tough years whether or not God was still providing for him. But in the end, God understands our needs much better than we do.

When we realize that he loves us...when we realize that he wants a relationship with us...when we realize that he provides for us gradually throughout our life, it becomes easier to trust God when he doesn't seem to be providing for us exactly how we'd like him to.

God the Father is our ultimate Provider. And I must say, when we look at things from an eternal perspective, he's pretty good at it.