A preacher got caught in a flood and was standing on top of his church, with water up to his ankles, praying.
A man came by in a boat and said "Come on Preacher and I'll take you to dry land." The preacher smiled and said "No thank you son, I have faith in The Lord and The Lord will provide."
The rain kept falling and the waters kept rising and when it reached the preachers waist another man in a boat came by and said "Get in Preacher and I'll take you to dry land." Again the preacher smiled and said "No thank you son, I have faith in The Lord and The Lord will provide."
The rain kept falling and the waters kept rising and when it reached the preachers chest a helicopter came by and said "Climb in Preacher and we'll take you to dry land." The preacher cried "No thank you my son. I am a man of great faith and I have faith that The Lord will provide."
The rain kept falling and the water kept rising and the preacher drowned and went to Heaven.
When he came before The Lord he said "Father, I don't understand. I put all my faith in you, why did you let me drown?"
God looked at him for a moment, smiled and said "I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what else did you want me to do?"
Although funny, that joke does have a serious message: we need to be sensitive to God's timing and His work in our lives.
People regularly miss God's hand in their lives, and we don't always recognize His work when it comes in a form we don't expect.
Jesus teaches us that we should look to God each day for the bread - the help and sustenance - we require. The Lord’s invitation to seek daily bread from our Heavenly Father speaks of a loving God, aware of even the small, daily needs of His children and eager to assist them, one by one.
How can we better recognize the hand of God moving in our lives? We must familiarize ourselves with God’s Word that tells us about who God is and what He does. Reading His Word helps us to understand how God works and how we should respond to Him:
All the Holy Writings are God-given and are made alive by Him. Man is helped when he is taught God’s Word. It shows what is wrong. It changes the way of a man’s life. It shows him how to be right with God. It gives the man who belongs to God everything he needs to work well for Him. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
We must also communicate with God through prayer. We can ask for wisdom to help us recognize, submit to, and learn from Him:
If you do not have wisdom, ask God for it. He is always ready to give it to you and will never say you are wrong for asking. James 1:5
And, we must trust God. Just as a son often rebels against the guidance of his father - not trusting his father's judgment - so do we often fight against God: "Why did You allow this? Why must I do that? Isn't there another way?"
We should be careful not to doubt God’s goodness or the quality of His plan. Many times in our lives, we make an ordeal worse by not trusting and obeying God:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6
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