Providing

DEVOTION
1 TIMOTHY
PROVIDING
1 Tim 5:5-8
5 The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. 6 But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. 7 Give the people these instructions, too, so that no one may be open to blame. 8 If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
NIV
The continued instructions about widows is at hand here and I am not sure I fully agree that in the post modern church of today that those widows who are in real need and left all alone actually put their hope in God instead in asking various men in the church. Again I am judging and I should not even be thinking along those lines, but I see what I see. Now when it comes to the rest of this instructive section I cannot help think of my brother who always quoted this to me, out of context. This providing is all about the children and grandchildren of widows and their responsibility to care for their mother or grandmother who is without a husband. Yet I also have always seen this in another way as well. The head of the household providing for his family has been taken from this concept as well. Most often all the believers I have discussed this with have seen the material provisions being talked about. Yet I must also see the spiritual provision. What is the most important? It is better to provide all the earthy creature comforts, the pleasures of this world or is it better to make sure your family has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and thus provide them with eternal life in paradise with God? I know the answer to that question and although I have done what I have had to do in order to provide the material things needed and I have not done the best in that department, I did bring my family to Jesus. I wonder is that is why I think how I do. I wonder if because I have not been the greatest provider of material goods for my family I have focused on the eternal provisions. Yet I cannot escape the worse than an unbeliever thing. Even unbelievers care and provide earthly material things, but surely do not provide for the spiritual eternal life of their family. If I lived my life for Jesus and did not provide a way for my family to know Jesus, I would have denied my faith. But still in the depth of my being I think of how I failed to provide for my own mother in her time of being a widow. Distant in this modern era is a factor but not an excuse. I tried to provide for her by having her live with us, but she insisted on returning to her live alone. I think maybe she wanted to be able to do her thing, be independent to enjoy the pleasures she graved. But I should have done more, but in the material and spiritual. But that is past and I most continue on with my life now and what is to come. Being watchful and available to provide for those widows in real need are my instructions here.