Yaweh Yireh

"I am making a way in the desert, and streams in the wasteland" (Isaiah 43:19)

Rain and more rain. The earth can't soak it up fast enough, the joyous song of rain on a tin roof has become a melancholy refrain. Mud sucks at our gumboots,  tyre tracks become waterlogged gouges and potholes - miry little wells. When a stray ray of sunshine finally breaks through the grayness, doors and windows are thrown open wide. We scuttle around like busy ants, filling washing lines and tugging determinedly at the thriving weeds. Even the frogs are silent... But the gardens and fields are green and lush, every particle of dust has settled, and skin and hair is refreshed and soft. End-year mania is a far-away reality and I sigh a grateful sigh for being able to escape it all.

Strolling (and slipping) down the path of a friend's garden, my senses are overwhelmed by masses of roses, flaunting their beauty and heady fragrance. These are flanked by neat rows of fruit-trees, their delights ripening, still dripping from the morning's shower. I inhale the scent of wet leaves, mock orange, then more roses. Nature decorating our village like no bells or blinking lights could ever do.

Inside, we encircle the table, Hogsback sisters celebrating a year of learning and loving together. I am reminded of a tree full of Mynah birds, but then these woman are birds of a different feather, each one, delightfully different and real. The mountains have tested and moulded us, deeper knowledge of His Word anchored us to the Rock of all ages. Iron may sharpen iron, but woman nurture and support with gentle strength, like ears of wheat bending together in the wind.

This year, we came to "know" the woman of the Bible. Some we adored, admired. A few are loathesome, sentinals of warning. We all found someone to relate to, be inspired by. I saw once again, how God can rewrite the text of your life when you open the book of your heart to his eyes (Ps. 18:24 The Message). This is not a fable written on dusty pages, it is alive and breathing and more relevant now than it has ever been. How many times do we see fortunes reversed, episodes that seem doomed to end in disaster take a dramatic turn. A nation threatened to be annialiated, saved!  Maidens, orphans, widows, prostitutes, all are included in his plan. And so are you and me. Never has one "book" been the centre of so much controversy, criticism, and scrutiny. Yet any guru with a grand theory that sounds sweet to starved ears, is published, read and revered without too much effort.

Is it because the Bible reveals not only the God of love, but also a just God? Not only an adoring Father, but a father of discipline, a jealous God that asks his bride to be faithful to him. The same God that gave a not-so-young Sarah a beautiful boy named Isaac, tested his father Abraham by asking Him to tie his only son to an altar as an offering. On the way up to the mountain, noticing that his Dad only had wood and means for fire with him, he asked: "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?". Abraham's heart probably tore apart when he answered: "God himself will provide the lamb..." And as he lifted his knife, his hand trembling in mid-air, an angel spoke the sweetest words: "do not lay a hand on the boy". What seems like a cruel trick, was not only the toughest test of faith, but an example of, regardless of how big the price seems at the time, Yaweh Yireh - The Lord will provide. He provided the lamb, not only then but ultimately through His only Son - so that he may look at us and say: Do not lay a hand on my children...

When a cruel twist of circumstance threatened to take what was most dear to me, He provided. Not only an outcome, a reversal of fortune, but a life in abundance growing more abundant each day.

Forget the former things; do not dwell in the past
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up
Do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
And streams in the wasteland
The wild animals honour me,
The jackals and the owls.
For I provide water in the desert
And streams in the wasteland...
                                (Isaiah 43:18-20)