In all your reviews and observations of Providence, be sure that you eye God as the author and orderer of them all.
We would be foolish to ponder the workings of Providence and then direct our worship towards some indirect force. Therefore, it is vital that we understand that all of these “workings of Providence” are directly from the hand of God. Flavel gives us a large number of things that we should “eye”. Flavel wants to encourage us not to make a shallow general confession of thanksgiving but to “take special notice of the following particulars”:
- Eye the care of God for you
- Eye the wisdom of God in dispensing His mercies to you
- Eye the free grace of God in His mercies towards us vile, unworthy creatures
- Eye the condescension of God to hear our requests
- Eye the design and end of God in all your comforts
- Eye the way and method in which these mercies are conveyed
- Eye the distinguishing goodness of God in all comfortable enjoyments
- Eye all these mercies as comforts appointed to refresh you towards far greater mercies
- Eye the sovereignty of God; His infinite superiority
- Eye the wisdom of God in all your afflictions
- Eye the all-sufficiency of God in the day of affliction
- Eye the immutability of God
Flavel wants us to see that whether it be blessing or affliction, we ought to eye God and give Him thanks, whatever our lot. Eyeing God will give us comfort and Him praise. One particular sentence to bring out is this one: “He might have made you the most despicable creatures, worms or toads: or, if men, the most vile, abject and misreable among men; and when you had run through all the miseries of this life, have damned you to eternity, make you miserable forever, and all this without any wrong to you. And shall not this quieten us under the common afflictions of this life?”
Return to The Mystery of Providence Chapter 9
