I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you—the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm—He will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. Psalm 121
“We must begin to correct the admittedly false picture of Providence which we have hitherto been using. That picture, you will remember, was false because it represented God and nature as inhabiting common time. But it is probable that nature is not really in time and almost certain that God is not.
Time is probably (like perspective) the mode of our perception. There is therefore in reality no question of God’s at one point in time (the moment of creation) adapting the material history of the universe in advance to free acts which you or I are to perform at a later point in time.
To Him all the physical events and all the human acts are present in an eternal now. The liberation of finite wills and the creation of the whole material history of the universe (related to the acts of those wills in all the necessary complexity) is to Him a single operation. In this sense, God did not create the universe long ago but creates it at this minute—at every minute.”
C. S. Lewis in Miracles in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York: Harper One, 2002) 458-459.
In exploring the idea of Providence, I had to sit at the feet of the professor to get help. C.S. Lewis offers us the perspective we need. As I ponder what I read in his classic work, Miracles, I got what I needed, and what the whole world needs. Hang with me I will explain the connection to generosity.
When we look to the mountains, what do we see?
We see our Creator functioning outside of time and space in the “eternal now” always working for the good of all that He has made. This reminds us that He will never be early or late to come to our aid. He is always hearing, always caring, always working for our good.
The false picture we must jettison is that God is limited by time and space. If we retain it, it will limit generosity as we will not count on His care. Remember John 11:21 on this note: “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
She thought Jesus and His capacity to do miracles was limited to time and space. He demonstrated otherwise and worked the miracle, the answer to her prayer, in a manner that would bring glory to God outside of time in the eternal now.
When I walk through the mountains and see the flowers, He whispers that He cares for these, so I can trust Him to care for me. When we trust in God’s providence, we find the peace the world needs. We also discover that we are here to reflect His generosity in the eternal now.