Of Providence

March 27, 2025

“Providence” is understood as God’s care of the world and his supervision of it. It necessitates that He is creator and sustainer, and that neither humanity nor the universe can operate outside of the intentional work and support of God. In chapter 5.5, the WCF leans into a dynamic of Providence that is disturbing and fascinating. It says:

The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave, for a season, his own children to manifold temptations and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends. [i]

Specifically, I want to reflect on God distancing himself, “…to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself…” Twenty plus years ago I preached a sermon, of which I have long since forgotten the text and topic but I said something that caught the interest of a congregant, who found it somewhat distressing. I said, “God reserves the right to disrupt our lives.” We too often make control and comfort of our lives a form of idolatry, and the most gracious thing God can do is to bring us into some form of crisis. What Saint John of the Cross described as the dark night of the soul, or modern contemplatives might see as a journey through the wall. For reference, one of the most obvious biblical examples would be Abraham’s crisis of faith when he was called to offer up Isaac as a burnt offering.

Briefly, what unfolds in Gen 22 is that Abraham seems to have allowed his affection for his loved son, the son of promise, to become a first thing in his heart. It could be that it was usurping the position that only God should have, and God asks Abraham the unthinkable: offer up Isaac, kill him, and trust me. The three-day journey to Moriah must have been heart-wrenching, confusing, desperate, and I believe that regardless of all the questions Abraham must have asked, those days were filled with the silence of God.

The providence of God works to sustain his chosen, but when the chosen have put created things, good things even gifts from God, when they have become first things, God must disrupt those affections. Either directly, by undoing the good albeit secondary thing, or indirectly by distancing himself (at least from our perception) from his child so as to enhance one’s desperation for God. In the case of Abraham, this was a full assault on his heart: uproot the fatherly idolatry towards his loved son and draw back during the time of greatest need to enhance your desperate dependence.

I think the example of Abraham’s obedience and God’s response shows the dynamics of grace and mercy, certainly, and is foreshadowing Jesus being the substitutionary payment. Yet it’s kind of an extreme example. These same dynamics of deceitfulness and often hidden corruption in our hearts, hearts that have allowed some other good thing to become a dominant force, can be more nuanced and subtle. We might find ourselves in a season of spiritual dryness, a time of perfunctory spiritual patterns, where our maturity is stunted, and we don’t know why. We must learn to examine our affections and then practice yielding our affections. God, in His providence, has chosen some to be adopted into his family, whereby we cry from our hearts, Abba Father. God is eternally working, through the scope of our salvation, to purify our hearts, and to that end he’ll do anything, including distancing himself to woo us back to our rightful relationship with him.

Point to ponder: How is the ongoing purifying of our affections, becoming more wholehearted in our relationship with God, part of God’s providential work in our lives?

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[i] Sproul, R.C.. Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith (p. 137). (Function). Kindle Edition.