Provision

NORMALLY, when people eat a balanced evening meal, it includes vegetables. Those vegetables will have been purchased at a grocery store. Of course, a grocery store bought the vegetables from someone who farmed and harvested them. The farmer had those vegetables to sell because he planted seeds in the ground. The land in which the seed was planted was also supported by both rain and sunshine. Rain and sunshine are dependent on heaven.
Rain from heaven must come down upon the land in which the seed has been planted—so the fruit and vegetable can sprout, so the farmer can deliver it to the grocery store, so that we can pick it up when we go shopping, so that we can have a nice evening meal. If a person gets stuck appreciating the grocery store, then they’ve missed the source.
The grocery store is simply the mechanism of delivery. Now, if God stops the sunshine and rain, stops the replication of the seed, or does not allow the land to be fruitful, then there is no trip to the grocery store.


Tony Evans:  Book of Illustrations: Stories, Quotes, and Anecdotes from More than 30 Years of Preaching and Public Speaking.