Looking To God's Provision

God's providence extends to every particular thing. He guides our incomings and our outgoings; he disposes of our journeys; his providence extends to the smallest things, to the sparrows and to the hair of our heads; he governs every particular passage of our lives.
This should teach us to set upon our affairs with looking up to heaven for permission, power, and endurance. James enforces this by reproving the contrary, 'Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go,"' he adds for our instruction, 'instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills we will live and do this or that"' (James 4:13-15). Let us therefore in all our affairs be holy, and not bind or limit our holiness only to coming to church; but seeing at all times and in all places we are Christians, and ever in the presence of God, let us place ourselves always in his eye, and do nothing but that we would be willing God to see; and labour to behold him in every good thing we have, and give him thanks in all the good we enjoy.
It also should give us warning, that we ought not to set upon anything, wherein we cannot expect God's guidance; and so consequently cannot trust on him for a blessing upon what we do. For if we do, we must look to meet the Lord standing in our way, as Balaam did, in opposing our lewd and wicked intentions.
It also ought to teach us to take nothing but that for which we may give God the thanks and praise; as contrarily many do, who may thank the devil for what they have gotten, and yet make God implicitly the giver of their most unjust transactions.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Of the Providence of God, Works, vol. 5, pp. 35-36
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