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Leviticus 26:3-4 "If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit."

 

Sometimes I overthink God's promises. I might read this and think, "Well, He says this, but good people suffer, sometimes a lot, so there is a mystery here"; or "There are plenty of poor people in this world, many of whom are trying to walk in His statutes, yet their trees are not bearing much fruit." There is definitely a mystery here, but today I am trying to not overthink this and just accept the promise.

 

God loves us, He wants to provide for us. When we are faithful to Him, we open up the conduit for His blessings to flow into our lives. God designed this world to have the rains fall in their seasons, and the land and the trees yield their plenty - that is the way it is supposed to work. It was we who messed things up with our sin. If the whole human race returned to following God's statutes, order would be restored and the natural world would respond in kind. We would all then have all have our needs met through the world's abundance and the charity of our fellow man.

 

I think part of my overthinking comes from times when I felt like I was walking in His statues, yet I was losing ground - maybe financially, maybe in relationships, or in any other way that life was not playing out to my expectations. But God is not promising here that things will always be just as I think they should be, nor that my wealth, relationships, health, nor anything else will always increase or get better. He is promising that I will have what I need when I need it, and I always have.

 

When I look back on periods of anxiety or uncertainty in my life, I can see how God was holding me up, even though I could not understand how things would work out. God sometimes makes necessary corrections in our lives that can seem like He is not keeping His promise of constant care. But He always is. I also have to remember that in my times of need, God often saw to my needs through the generosity and love of other people. He's asking me to do that for others, especially the poor, so He can keep His promise to them, as well.