Good news for the countryside: God’s wonderful and abundant provision

​There is no doubt that we are well into autumn.

It’s getting chillier and you can feel the change as the evenings draw in sooner, and each day gets shorter still, as the night creeps further into the mornings. It’s that time when nature winds itself down for the coming winter - gently at first, but picking up apace now with the awesome annual spectacle of the turning of the leaves - and then tomorrow, a literal time of change as the clocks go back.

With less light to work the farm, it is still a busy time for farmers. With the winter wheat going in and potatoes being harvested, as the temperature drops preparations are also underway to bring in the livestock for the winter months - especially this year’s calves, which have been weaned. Sheep will be dipped and prepared for tupping – and whatever the time of year, cows will still need to be milked.

While the technology may have changed to get what needs to be done, season-by- season however, the farming year itself hasn’t altered. But one thing that seems to have changed this year, is the abundance of berries on the trees and hedgerows.

The dark purply-black of the elderberries, clusters of bright orangey-red on the rowan trees, and the hawthorne’s deep red haws bring additional colour to God’s glorious autumnal palette. It made me think of the old saying that such abundance usually heralds a long, hard and cold winter, and is a sign of God’s provision for the smallest of His creatures.

In the Bible’s Old Testament, many names are attributed to God that describe who He is, His awesome character, qualities and attributes. For example, in the original Hebrew text God is described as ‘El Shaddai’ meaning ‘God Almighty’, ‘Yahweh’ or ‘Jehovah’ translated as ‘LORD’. He is also ‘Jehovah-Jireh’, ‘the LORD will provide’. The writer of Genesis tells us how God tested Abraham’s faith and his obedience to Him. We read that Abraham was told to sacrifice his only son Isaac, who didn’t know what God had called his father to do.

While they had everything they needed practically for the sacrifice, Isaac asked, ‘“…where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’” (Genesis 22:7) In the following verse his father answered, ‘“God Himself will provide the lamb…’” And as he was about to slay his son upon the altar, he heard the angel of the LORD cry out “Do not lay a hand on the boy’… Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place, The Lord Will Provide” (Genesis 22: 12-14).

Today, it is a difficult story to read, and in many ways hard to understand. Yet, it pointed to a time in the future when at that first Easter, God would provide His own son Jesus, ‘the lamb of God’ (John 1:29), as a sacrifice for our sin to enable us to enter into a new and restored relationship with God.

During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks of how God provides for the birds, and asked the rhetorical question, “Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26). Just as we can see God’s provision for the birds in the hedgerows, let us look to Jesus who provides more than we can ever dream - the wonderful promise of eternal life.

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Before coming to live in Belfast over 40 years ago, Mark grew up in a village in rural Sussex, coming to Northern Ireland in his late teens. He is a member of Bloomfield Presbyterian Church in east Belfast and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s press & media officer.

If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues raised in this article, please email Rev Kenny Hanna, PCI’s Rural Chaplain at [email protected] or call him on 07938 488 372.