This message was delivered by the Reverend Donald Ng, Senior Pastor of First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco during the church trip to Yosemite National Park in 2003
God Provides
God created us with glory and gave us responsibilities for taking care of the world and for each other.
What might you do to care for the earth—people and the environment?
As God provides for us, we are to provide for others.
“God will Provide for Us.”
There’s a story about a young woman who brought her fiancé home to meet her parents. After dinner, her mother told her father to find out about the young man.
The father invited the fiancé to his study for a talk.
“So what are your plans?” the father asked the young man.
“I am a biblical scholar,” he replied.
“A biblical scholar. Hmmm,” the father said. “Admirable, but what will you do to provide a nice house for my daughter to live in?”
“I will study,” the young man replied, “and God will provide for us.”
“And how will you buy her a beautiful engagement ring, such as she deserves?” asked the father.
“I will concentrate on my studies,” the young man replied, “God will provide for us.”
“And children?” asked the father. “How will you support children?”
“Don’t worry, sir, God will provide,” replied the fiancé.
The conversation proceeded like this, and each time the father questioned, the young idealist insisted that God would provide.
Later, the mother asked, “How did it go, Honey?”
The father answered, “He has no job and no plans, and he thinks I’m God!”
God does provide for all of our needs. And we don’t really need to worry. When we take care of one another like we do here at Yosemite—cooking and cleaning after each other, watching each other’s kids, making sure everyone has something to eat, welcoming and praying for each other, going hiking together and making sure no one falls down, and people like Joe who does a lot of planning to give us delicious meals.
When we have been “give dominion over the works of God’s hands and everything that’s under our feet,” we have a responsibility to care for each other, for other people, and for the environment.
Noah’s Ark
With all this rain that we’ve been getting, I thought about the Noah’s Ark Principles.
Everything I need to know, I learned from Noah’s Ark…
One—Don’t miss the boat.
Two—Remember that we are all in the same boat. Share everything.
Three—Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
Four—Stay fit. When you’re in your 60s or 70s, someone may ask you to do
something really big.
Five—Don’t listen to critics, just get on with the job that needs to be done.
Six—Build your future on high ground.
Seven—For safety’s sake, travel in twos and hold hands.
Eight—Speed isn’t always an advantage. The snails were on board with the
cheetahs. Take a nap every afternoon.
Nine—When you’re stressed out, float awhile.
Ten—Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Eleven—Don’t throw things down the drain, it goes out into the Bay.
Twelve—No matter the storm, when you are with God, there’s always a
rainbow waiting for you to see.
It’s true that we all are in the same boat. Let us trust God with our lives because of his majestic love in making us joint heirs and co-creators with him in all the earth.