Over the summer my dad and my daughter were canvassing a thrift shop aisle when they happened upon a reading lamp for a sweet deal. It was bright fuchsia, metallic and flashy—just her style. They tested it out, but when we got it home, we noticed that although it turned ON, the touch sensor didn’t turn OFF. So my dad, handyman that he is, went and got a new switch and gutted the touch sensor. The “sweet deal” was a more expensive deal now, but the important thing was that my daughter had this really cool lamp and Grandpa had fixed it special for her.

After we moved it into her room, we discovered she didn’t really need a lamp–she had two in place. Instead, she ended up making a spot for it, because she loved it, but it wasn’t in the best spot. It’s been sitting, mostly unused-but loved-on a small stand. That was, until the other night.

About a week ago, as my daughter was climbing into bed, we heard a loud crash from her room—she’d accidentally knocked her glass lamp off the desk. Now, my girl is passionate about reading before she goes to sleep, so her first thought upon seeing her broken lamp was that she could no longer read in bed. I immediately moved her fuchsia lamp over to her bedside so that she could read—and all was well with the world.

Last night, after I tucked her in and flipped on her fuchsia lamp, I got to thinking about God and how he takes care of us. That’s when I realized that he had provided a replacement lamp for my daughter, a full month before she even needed one. With a contrite heart, I began pondering all the things that God provides for me that I never even notice—because like the lamp, they so often enter our lives in this seamless, subtle way.

Mathew 6: 8b for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Mathew 6: 25-33 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.