365 Days of the Great Names of God, Day 346: Giver of What We Need

Giver of What We Need

"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Matthew 6:7,8 NIV)

"And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:19 NIV)

My family needed something the other day. We didn't actually know what we needed, and, in fact, we didn't even know that we needed it.

But God knew both what and that.

The longer we walk with God, the more we build up a memory bank of times God met needs we didn't even know we had. There is a special kind of power to this provision. Certainly, we are thankful when we know we have a need and we ask God to meet it and He does. But when we come to a place where we realize our need and, at the very same moment, realize God has already met it...this is a profoundly faith-building place to be. These moments become deposits in our trust accounts, to be drawn on in the future. They become ammunition for the thankfulness that fires up the shoes of peace in our spiritual armor.

Gratitude to God is always based on what He has already done. We may say, "Thank you in advance," to show our genuine belief in God's future faithfulness, but even that is based on His past provision. And few things cure a thankfulness deficiency—when we're suffering from that recurring condition—more quickly than to look back on previous chapters in our story with God and reread accounts of the times He's met our needs before we were even aware we had them.

I only have to look a few days in the past to see the need my family had that we weren't even aware of until we were seeing God's meeting of it. Maybe you're remembering something similar: "I didn't even know I needed _____________, but God provided it."

To recount what God has done is to rehearse His goodness. To rehearse His goodness is to refresh our thankfulness. And to refresh our thankfulness is to renew our faithfulness that the next time we get to a place where we recognize a need, we will hear God's voice telling us, "I knew that you'd need this. I knew what you'd need. Here...I've got it waiting for you."