The Open-Handed Providence of God Text: Psalm 145:14-16
Introduction: A Universe That Is Cared For
We live in an age that is functionally deistic. Even many Christians, who ought to know better, live as though God wound up the clock of the universe, set it on the mantle, and now lets it run on its own. They believe in God, of course, but it is a distant, hands-off sort of God. He is the great Unmoved Mover of the philosophers, not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is a landlord, not a father.
But the Scriptures paint a radically different picture. The God of the Bible is not disengaged; He is intimately and meticulously involved in every detail of His creation. He is not just the God of the big picture, the God of salvation history and grand cosmic movements. He is the God of sparrows and lilies. He is the God who numbers the hairs on your head. And as our text today makes abundantly clear, He is the God who sustains, raises, feeds, and satisfies every living thing. He is a God of constant, active, and personal providence.
This psalm, an acrostic poem celebrating the excellencies of God, gives us a portrait of God's character as it is displayed in His governance of the world. And in these three verses, we are given a concentrated dose of glorious truth about how God relates to His creatures. This is not abstract theology; this is the bedrock of our daily trust. This is the reason we can pray, the reason we can work, and the reason we can rest. It is because the universe is not an orphan. It is not a chaotic jumble of competing forces. It is a household, and it is managed by a Father whose hand is always open.
We must understand that this doctrine of God's exhaustive providence is a direct assault on the twin idols of our age: autonomous man and blind chance. The secularist wants to believe he is the master of his fate, the captain of his soul. The nihilist wants to believe that nothing matters because it is all random. The Bible says that both are fools. You are not in charge, and nothing is random. Yahweh sustains all things. His eyes are on all things. His hand provides for all things. This is either the most terrifying news in the world or the most comforting. It is terrifying if you are in rebellion against Him. But if you are His child, it is the sweetest news imaginable.
The Text
Yahweh sustains all who fall
And raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all wait on You,
And You give them their food in due time.
You open Your hand
And satisfy the desire of every living thing.
(Psalm 145:14-16 LSB)
The God Who Stoops (v. 14)
We begin with the first stanza of our text, which reveals God's tender care for the weak and the downtrodden.
"Yahweh sustains all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down." (Psalm 145:14)
Notice the subjects here. God's attention is directed toward the falling and the bowed down. This is not a God who is only interested in the strong, the successful, the ones who have it all together. Our God is a God who stoops. He is drawn to weakness. The word for "sustains" here means to uphold, to support, to prop up. When someone is stumbling, when their knees are buckling under a heavy load, Yahweh is the one who comes alongside to hold them up. He doesn't just wait for you to hit the bottom; He is there in the process of falling.
This is a universal principle. He sustains "all" who fall. This speaks to His common grace. The unbeliever who is crushed by a business failure, the pagan who is bent low with grief, they continue to draw breath only because Yahweh sustains them. He upholds the very fabric of their existence, even while they defy Him. But for the believer, this promise is covenantal and rich. When we fall into sin, when we stumble in our faith, when we are overwhelmed by trial, He is our sustainer. Peter was beginning to fall beneath the waves, and the Lord reached out His hand and caught him. This is the posture of our God toward His failing children.
And He "raises up all who are bowed down." This is more than just preventing a collapse; this is restoration. To be "bowed down" is to be bent over with care, with sorrow, with the weight of sin, or with the oppression of others. It is a condition of humiliation and helplessness. And God's response is to lift them up, to straighten their backs, to restore their dignity. This is what Christ did for the woman bent double for eighteen years. He saw her, called her, and said, "Woman, you are freed from your disability." And immediately she stood up straight and glorified God (Luke 13:10-13). This is a picture of our salvation. We were all bowed down, crushed under the weight of our sin, and He raised us up to sit with Him in the heavenly places.
This verse is a direct refutation of all forms of pride and self-reliance. We are all, at some point, the falling and the bowed down. If you are not currently in that position, you either have been or you will be. The Christian life is not a story of our own strength, but a story of being sustained and raised up by His.
The Watchful Provider (v. 15)
Next, the psalmist turns from God's care for the afflicted to His provision for all of creation.
"The eyes of all wait on You, and You give them their food in due time." (Psalm 145:15 LSB)
This is a beautiful picture of universal dependence. "The eyes of all wait on You." Think of little birds in a nest, necks craned, beaks open, waiting for the mother bird to return with food. Think of a dog sitting by the dinner table, eyes fixed on his master. This is the posture of the entire created order toward its Creator. From the leviathan in the deep to the ant on the ground, every creature looks to God for its daily provision. They do not know they are looking to Him, most of them, but they are. Their instinct for survival, their hunt for food, is a creaturely expression of this deep, created dependence on the Sustainer of all life.
Jesus teaches us this very same lesson in the Sermon on the Mount. "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them" (Matthew 6:26). This is not poetry; it is a statement of fact about the way the world works. God is the one who ensures the entire food chain functions. He provides the rain, the sun, the seed, the growth, and the harvest.
And notice the timing: "You give them their food in due time." God's providence is not haphazard. It is timely. It is seasonal. He knows what each creature needs and when it needs it. Our problem is that our timetable is often not His. We want our "due time" to be "right now." But God is the one who defines the season. He gives us this day our daily bread. He does not give us tomorrow's bread today, because He is teaching us to wait, to trust, to keep our eyes fixed on Him. This daily dependence is a gift. It is the cord that keeps us tethered to the Giver of all good things.
The Open-Handed Satisfier (v. 16)
This theme of generous provision culminates in the magnificent declaration of verse 16.
"You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing." (Psalm 145:16 LSB)
Here we see the character and the manner of God's giving. He gives with an "open hand." This is the opposite of a stingy, grasping, tight-fisted giving. An open hand signifies generosity, abundance, and a lack of reluctance. God does not give grudgingly. He delights to give. He is not a cosmic miser, carefully doling out just enough to get by. He is a king who throws a feast. The picture is one of someone scattering seed to the chickens, broadcasting it freely and widely. The entire world is fed from the overflow of His liberality.
And what is the result of this open-handed giving? He satisfies "the desire of every living thing." This is a staggering statement. God has built into every creature certain desires, certain needs and wants that are appropriate to its nature. The lion desires meat, the bee desires nectar, the deer desires the cool stream. And God, in His providence, has made a world in which those desires can be, and are, satisfied. This is a good world. It is a world of abundance, a world designed for flourishing.
Now, we must be careful here. This does not mean that every sinful, twisted, or idolatrous desire of fallen man is satisfied. James tells us that we often ask and do not receive, because we ask wrongly, to spend it on our passions (James 4:3). The desires that God satisfies are the legitimate desires of the creature as He designed it. And even then, in this fallen world, satisfaction is not always immediate or complete. But the principle stands: God is the source of all satisfaction. He is the one who made us with desires, and He is the only one who can ultimately fulfill them.
The ultimate desire of man, the desire behind all our other desires, is the desire for God Himself. As Augustine said, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." God satisfies the desire of the squirrel for a nut, and He satisfies the desire of the saint for communion with Him. All lesser satisfactions are meant to be signposts, pointing us to the ultimate satisfaction that can only be found in Him. He opens His hand and gives us a beautiful sunset, a good meal, the love of a spouse. And in all these good gifts, He is inviting us to come and find our satisfaction in the Giver.
Conclusion: Living in a Cared-For World
So what do we do with these truths? We are to live like they are true. We are to live as creatures who are sustained, upheld, watched over, and provided for by a generous, open-handed Father.
This means we are to be a people free from anxiety. If God feeds the ravens and clothes the lilies, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Worry is a practical atheism. It is living as though the universe were an orphan, as though you were in charge. To trust in God's providence is to take a deep breath and rest in the fact that the government of the world rests on His shoulders, not yours.
This means we are to be a people marked by gratitude. If every meal is a gift from His open hand, then every meal should be received with thanks. If every moment of strength when we were about to fall was His sustaining grace, then every moment should be lived in gratitude. A rebellious heart is an ungrateful heart. It takes the gifts while cursing the Giver.
And finally, this means we are to be a people who imitate our God. If our Father is one who gives with an open hand, then we, His children, are to be open-handed as well. We are to be generous. We are to sustain those who are falling around us. We are to help lift up those who are bowed down. We are to share our food with the hungry. We are conduits of God's providential care to others. We give because we have first received.
The ultimate expression of God's open-handed satisfaction is the cross of Jesus Christ. At the cross, God did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all. He opened His hand and gave us the greatest gift, the only gift that could satisfy the deepest desire of our hearts: forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with Him. In Christ, God sustains us from our fatal fall into sin. In Christ, He raises us who were bowed down under the crushing weight of the law. And in Christ, He opens His hand and offers us Himself, the only true satisfaction for our souls, forever.