Psalm 104 celebrates the Lord’s marvelous provision. Yahweh’s trees, the cedars of Lebanon, are watered abundantly (v. 16). The Lord provides for a wide variety of creatures (from stork to rock badger; vv. 16–18). He makes the moon to shine at night and the sun in the day (v. 19). As part of God’s perfect, all-wise providence, “Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening” (v. 23). All creatures look to God the Creator as their provider.

We are often tempted to set asking and trusting against each other, but of course it is a false choice. When a child asks his dad for breakfast, he trusts that his father can provide. It does not occur to him to sit and wait and think, “If my dad really loved me, I would not have to ask him for breakfast. He would just do it.” We adults do that to other adults frequently, but we should take a lesson from a child.

All creatures look to God as their provider.

Psalm 104 celebrates the Lord’s marvelous provision. Yahweh’s trees, the cedars of Lebanon, are watered abundantly (v. 16). The Lord provides for a wide variety of creatures (from stork to rock badger; vv. 16–18). He makes the moon to shine at night and the sun in the day (v. 19). As part of God’s perfect, all-wise providence, “Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening” (v. 23). All creatures look to God the Creator as their provider:

These all look to you,
to give them their food in due season.
When you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.  (Ps. 104:227–30)

Now the animals to which the psalmist refers do not pray, but they, like us, are dependent upon God. When he gives life, they live. When he withdraws his support, they (and we) die and return to the dust from which we were taken. We are image bearers formed from the dust of the earth, animated by the Lord.

We are to ask our heavenly Father for all our needs.

Unlike the other creatures, as image bearers we were made to be in communion with God the Father, in Christ the Son, through the Spirit. As his adopted sons, we are to ask him for all our needs. Thus, we confess:

125. Q. What is the fourth petition?

A. “Give us this day our daily bread,” that is: Be pleased to provide for all our bodily need, so that we may thereby acknowledge you to be the only fountain of all good, and that without Your blessing neither our care and labor, nor Your gifts can profit us; that we may therefore withdraw our trust from all creatures and place it alone in you. (Heidelberg Catechism)

God is both the immutable Father of lights, from whom every good and perfect gift comes (James 1:17), and the God who hears our prayers. Too often we are more like the rock badger (Ps. 104:18) than we are like adopted sons for Christ’s sake. The psalmist, however, says:

Yahweh is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. (Ps. 145:18–19)

When we call out to God our Father to meet our needs, we call on him in faith, in trust and confidence for Christ’s sake that he hears our prayers and is, as is often said, “more willing to hear than we are to pray.” Sometimes we think that our material needs are beneath God’s attention. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a lie of the Evil One to think this way, because our physical, material, and bodily needs (note: we are talking about needs not desires) are basic and they persist.

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