“God always provides.”
It’s a phrase I’ve heard countless times, but I found myself saying it again at a family wedding last weekend. I mentioned the common Arabic saying to a family member, and what started as a familiar expression turned into a surprisingly deeper conversation.
Because we realised that while we firmly believe God provides, He doesn’t make things happen out of nowhere. We still have our tiny part to play. We have to take the opportunity, make the decision, put in the work and, sometimes, take the next step – trusting God to take care of the rest.
That thought has stayed with me while watching the remarkable post-World Cup journeys of three young Australian footballers.
Lucas Herrington has just made his Premier League debut for Hull City, coming off the bench in a huge 2-0 win over Manchester United. Nestory Irankunda has begun his adventure with Portuguese giants Sporting CP, making his debut against Alverca. And Patrick Beach has started life in France with Troyes, keeping a clean sheet in Ligue 1.
For Australian football, these are enormous steps. For the players themselves, they are also reminders that the destination is never the whole story.
We often think about sport in terms of destinations. The Premier League. A World Cup. A big transfer. A trophy. We set our eyes on where we want to end up and measure success by whether we get there.
Faith asks us to think differently. Christianity is much more concerned with vocation than destination. God gives us a calling, but He rarely gives us the entire itinerary. More often, He gives us the next step.
Herrington could not have known, when his football journey began in Australia, that it would lead to a Premier League pitch against Manchester United. Irankunda’s journey began with his parents fleeing conflict in Burundi, before he arrived in Australia as a baby and eventually made his way from Adelaide United to Sporting.
Neither story happened overnight. There were coaches, teammates, parents, sacrifices, setbacks, training sessions and countless ordinary days when nobody was watching. That is where the phrase “God always provides” becomes more profound.
Providence does not mean sitting back and waiting for God to do everything. It means trusting that God is at work while faithfully doing what is in front of us.
We plant the seed. We water it. We take the opportunity. We turn up to training. We make the difficult decision. We take the next step. And then we trust God with the rest.
There is something comforting about that, not just for aspiring footballers but for all of us.
Most of us will never play in the Premier League, Ligue 1 or Portugal’s top flight. But we all have a vocation, and none of us can see exactly where it will lead. Sometimes the temptation is to become so obsessed with the destination that we forget the step directly in front of us.
Perhaps the lesson from these young Socceroos is a simple one: we don’t need to know where every step will take us. We just need to take the next one faithfully.
God provides. But sometimes His way of providing is simply giving us the grace to take that next step.
