The providence of God is an easy thing to trust in as I sit in my chair. The air around me is warm. My clothes are worn and a bit tattered, by choice, but they cover my nakedness. My stomach is full, perhaps too full, and my children complain of hunger only when there is the possi­bility of a snack covered in chocolate. We all sleep in com­fortable beds and rest and wake in safety. It is easy to trust in God to provide for my needs when there is little I can honestly say that I need.

Last weekend a thing happened that started me wondering. I turned the idea of God's Providence over and over in my mind as I jostled along bumpy roads. I tried to put together my thoughts while discussing the events of the day. I had given away my shirt, my tie, my sunglasses and everything else I could spare and wondered if perhaps, just perhaps, even though I experience it, I don't really trust in God's Providence at all.

There are certainly times that I can identify where I have recognised my need of God's Grace. There have been several times, some of joy and some of trial, when I brought what I perceived to be my needs before the Throne of Grace. I have asked for strength. I have asked for understanding. I have asked for peace. And, a long time ago, in a parking lot in the middle of the night, I asked for the Spirit to convict me of my sin and for that sin to be covered by the blood of Christ. I know that these requests, more swiftly and completely than I could ever have imagined, have been granted. This leaves me wondering if I have any idea what it means to trust in God when all my spiritual and emotional needs have been, or are in the process of being, met.

Could it be that my affluence, spiritual or material, actually stands in the way of my trusting God? Could the concrete, overflowing, often unappreciated, expres­sion of God's practical earthly grace to me be interfering with my abil­ity to trust in Him? Is it really trust for me to trust in the provision of what I already have? When I stand showered with blessings, where is the need for trust? The best I can do is acknowl­edge that all I have is from God. This is not the same as trusting in the Providence of God. Last Sunday I sat in a room full of people who know what it is to trust. We stood and sang praise to God to the rhythms of a drum, a scratch­er, a tambourine, and a guitar, with words I could barely understand. We sat together and listened to the Word being preached in Creole and Spanish, and some translated English. We were gathered together in a small concrete block building on a small, dusty bateye four hours drive west of Santo Domingo. The local Haitian canefield workers and their families, surviving on whatever they could get, and our group of Canadians, wealthier than they could imagine, sang and worshipped and praised God together.

Outside, amid the dust and the dogs, ran children who smiled and chattered as we walked between the ramshackle buildings they call home. Some were clothed, others naked, all were thin and unhealthy looking. Some sat back on the edges and did not reach out for the goodies on offer. Would not, could not, or dared not, I know not. Their cooled, yellowed eyes hid at least that much from us. We brought to them clothes and candy and medicines to be handed out later as needed, and played catch with the bright yellow balls we had bought three for a dollar. Some ran after the van as we drove off to the city until we left them behind in the dust and the cane and plantain.

The sermon was about the Providence of God. It was a sermon that spilled into the street and followed me around like the dust and the children. It tapped against my mind on the way back to town. It wanted nothing of me but my trust. Would I, could I, dared I open my heart and see that their faith in His providence was all that they had.

They showed it to me and I will not be the same. Compared to this gift, what we brought to them seemed insignificant.

This, I trust, is also the Providence of God.