Divine Providence

What is Divine Providence all about?

In theology, Divine Providence, or simply Providence, is the sovereignty, superintendence, or agency of God over events in people's lives and throughout history. Everybody but atheists believes in God's providence (even if they don't know exactly what the word entails or what it means), but the moment one starts speaking of random election, predestination, unconditional salvation, absolute sovereignty and grace--in its purest and truest definition--conflict erupts, and the opponents of such teachings atack them in an irrational reaction of incomprehensible irony. These opponents evidently fail to realize that those principles that they denounce as blasphemous are precisely the necessary constituents and obvious manifestations of the divine providence and of the law of cause and effect (causality, of which we shall speak later) that they themselves accept as irrefutable truths. When theists (people who believe in God's existence and providence, although not necessarily in His grace toward sinners) say things like, Thank God I got a juicy raise in pay when I most needed it, God willing I will see you in the Summer, if God wills it, nothing moves without God's will, God is in control, I'll leave it up to God, I pray the Lord that He mends my marriage, we depend on Him for everything, we are and can do nothing without Him, we cannot put God in a box, God will provide, etc., usually they don't know they are talking about God's sovereignty, superintendence or agency, in a few words, about God's Providence and His indisputable power and authority. Depending on a number of factors, prayer can be and is one of the most effective means of obtaining God's favors. Such demonstrations of personal effort as discipline, diligence and determination on the part of both the saved and the unsaved are also rewarded by God. An important note before we go on: We must make a clear distinction between Divine Providence, which was meant for all members of the human species [(He said that He made His sun shine and His rain fall on both the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45)] and His grace, which He bestowed expressly on those He elected in Christ for eternal life in His kingdom only.

Why does God not always answer prayer?
There are two forms in which God reveals His active participation in people's lives, and all for the benefit of mankind: The natural and the supernatural, although He relatively seldom provides this last form of providential agency. Supernatural providence is an area of Christian thought and practice that needs urgent clarification. Some Christians seem to think that God is in the obligation of working miracles all of the time under all circumstances. Meantime, those miracles, more often than not, are not forthcoming. Yet in spite of all the clear evidence to the contrary, preachers stubbornly encourage their audiences to continue to believe that miraculous healing will inevitably occur if only they exercise genuine faith. God's sovereign freedom to work miracles or not is never taken into account. The truth of the matter is, though, that because many times it does not occur to us that perhaps we do not pray as we should [You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures (James 4:3)] and not according to God's will, we will never receive what we ask for. A good part of the time God does answer our prayers in an unexpected manner. Sometimes He honors our pleas instantly, and sometimes He takes His time (something that always feels like an eternity to us). The great majority of us do not consider the possibility that God sometimes does not respond to our prayers for a good reason; and not infrequently that good reason we may have at least an inkling of. I trust that a good many believers are mature enough to have discovered all these facts by themselves already. Which, if so, should make the exposition of a profusion of vivid examples hardly necessary.
I therefore will offer just one such example: I prayed as fervently and sincerely as is humanly possible for two persons outside my household. One was a seventeen-year old boy, the son of a dear friend, whose throat was slashed open. The other was a Chistian old fellow who suffered from emphysema for years. I prayed almost daily for both to come out of their agony victorious for as long as they lived. God decided to take them away instead. For a long time I could never understand why God did not grant my wishes, as vehement as they were, until recently, when I finally learned to fully acknowledge His supreme sovereignty. I also understood that He never promised to spare the young. We are all appointed to die once, and then the judgment (Hebrews 9:27), at whatever age death may come to us. One last observation: too many of our brethren seem to rely too much on ministers for miraculous healing or for God to fill their needs (I know of people who make actual pilgrimages from one end of the country to the other in an eager search for signs and wonders), but what is wrong with individual prayer? This writer has never had anyone lay hands on him or even pray over him for any of the more or less half a dozen actual miracles he has been blessed with, let alone the numerous instances of natural remedies as the immediate result of wholly personal prayer. Perhaps people should be encouraged to make stronger and more persistent attempts to pray on their own, too, if intercession by others does not always work. That is why I focus more on salvation and the condition of man's soul than on health and wealth (not to be ignored altogether either).
The futility of employing unscriptural practices
Many "ministering" preachers actually push people hard in an effort to cause them to fall; apparently, they do it because they perceive it is their obligation, or God's obligation, to make this happen even if it means knocking the person down and running the risk of harming rather than healing him or her. What kind of idiocy is that? Where do we find examples of people being slain in the Spirit (as the practice is commonly and unscripturally described) in the Bible to begin with? The idea is to effect a miraculous cure, deliverance from demonic possession, emotional unstability, etc., through the practice. However, the only recorded incident of persons that ever fell down in the New Testament, Ananias and Sapphira, not to be healed, but because they lied to the Holy Spirit (God); and they didn't fall because the apostle Peter laid hands on them either (Acts 5:1-10). The fact of the matter is that ministering preachers have overlooked the very significant detail that, of about six instances of laying on of hands, there is only one in which the obvious purpose was healing, and that took place on the island of Malta, when the apostle Paul laid hands on the father of a man named Plubius (Acts 28:8). All of the others but one [when the apostles laid hands on Paul and Barnabas to send them off on a mission to Asia Minor (Acts 13:3)] had to do with praying for new believers to receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:17; 9:17; 19:6; 1 Tim. 5.22; 2 Tim. 1:6). Besides, these naive gentlemen also miss the fact that God, in the person of Jesus and through the apostles, used a variety of means to heal people: anywhere from a brief command to spitting, laying hands (such as Jesus once did in Luke 13:12), touching and even the passing shadow of an apostle, as in the case of Peter (Acts 5:15). In this manner God tells us that He can exercise His unlimited and sovereign power any way He wants. Another unfortunate case of misguided faith is that of people who refuse to take a certain medication that would bring them sure relief, on the false assumption that seeking medical intervention is sinful and a demonstration of lack of faith in God's supernatural power. Not too infrequently complications have resulted, including death, from this unjustified and obdurate insistence, especially in an age such as ours when we can avail ourselves of many medical advances that were not known to the ancient world. Remember, when man finds something impossible to do, God will do it miraculously, if He so wills it. What we must always keep in mind is God's sovereignty. It's entirely up to Him whether to intervene in our lives naturally or supernaturally. Likewise, although He does not normally or hardly ever resorts to the supernatural to cure such a relatively easy-to-cure ailment as a simple headache, what's to prevent Him from doing it if He so wills it?
The Holy Spirit: His role as Helper is not to be confused with servanthood
It is not that God cannot or will not effect a cure through the laying on of hands; rather it is that we cannot, and must not, put Him in a box and just confine Him to do some things only in a certain particular way, season, or place. To begin with, it is absolutely necessary to fully understand the role of the Holy Spirit, who is, above all else, our Helper (the idea of helper involves whatever kind of help we can recognize as such). These various kinds of help (Comforter, Advocate, Counselor, Teacher, Sanctifier, etc.) are all contained in the single Greek word Paraclete as the Holy Spirit is sometimes called). Being our Helper does not mean that He is our submissive and blindly obedient servant who is always obligated to assist us even in an act contrary to His immaculate character. Well, far from being our servant, He is our Creator Himself, our sovereign Lord. He is the very mind, soul and will of the Father in us, who out of His abundant generosity and goodness has opted, of His own free will, * to dwell in us (2 Corinthians 6:16) and share His divine nature (His character, way of thinking and righteousness) with us (2 Peter 1:4). Incidentally, I would like to remark that man, strictly speaking, does not have a free will in the absolute sense of the phrase, for while there are no restraints on him to do what he pleases, his will, far from being free, is enslaved to sin, which makes him a de facto servant of Satan. In this sense only God's will is absolutely and truly free. This absolute and perfect freedom is called God's sovereignty or sovereign Lordship. As God the Father who dwells in the believer (2 Corinthians 6:16, already cited above and again below *), the Holy Spirit helps us overcome our fallen nature, and if sometimes we fail it is only because we resist Him (much like asking for and receiving sound advice and doing the exact opposite), but unlike certain forms of help among humans, we did not solicit or enlist His; on the contrary, out of His immense love for us, He provided it freely as a gift to all, but only those He chose are the permanent beneficiaries of His grace, having foreseen that others would either plainly refuse it or accept it initially just to dispense with it at a later time. Of that reality we have plenty of evidence, don't we?
* [16What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are * the temple of the living God (The Father and Holy Spirit as one person). As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."[c] 17"Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch not what is unclean, and I will receive you."[d] 18"I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6:16-18)].
Are all providential acts of God miracles?
Too many Christians are in the habit of not calling certain things by their name more often than is warranted. One of such things is to consider every answer of God to prayer a miracle. For example, if someone who does not have enough money to pay the rent providentially receives a check that will cover it (and maybe a little more) he or she likes to say that