Providence is the way in which the Lord constantly governs everything. It is there in every moment of life and in every circumstance. We cannot put ourselves outside divine providence, which seeks in countless unknown ways to bring us into heaven, while always leaving us in freedom to reject its guidance if we so choose.

We are unaware of the activity of providence. If we were aware, we would try to avoid it or bend it, thinking that we know better.

For those who wish to live rightly and try to do so, providence is like an unseen and unfelt current that bears them along toward heaven like a ship on an ocean current. For those who wish to live in their selfish loves, providence keeps them in an equilibrium between good and evil influences so that they can, if they wish, change their ways.

Providence is the Lord’s, and He is infinite love and infinite wisdom, which we need to keep in mind if we find ourselves wondering if we could do better at running things.

Swedenborg published a 300 page book about the Divine Providence. The first chapter heading is definitive; "The Divine Providence is the Government of the Lord’s Divine Love and Wisdom." Everyone is under that government. We are free to accept the direction of the Lord’s leading or not; our freedom is paramount. The Lord will always knock, but we must open the door to Him.

There are five laws of divine providence:

1. A person should act from freedom according to reason.

2. A person should, as-from-self, remove evils as sins from his/her externals. In that way, and in no other way, the Lord can remove evils in the internal person, and then at the same time in the external.

3. People should not be compelled by external means to think and will, and thus to believe and love, the things of religion. Rather, they should persuade and at times compel themselves to do so.

4. People should be taught and led by the Lord from heaven by means of the Word, and doctrine and preaching from the Word, and this should happen, to all appearances, as if they are acting indendently.

5. People should not perceive and feel anything of the operation of the divine providence, but still we should know about it and acknowledge it.

(références: Arcana Coelestia 609, 1755, 3854, 3951, 5155; Divine Providence 21, 22, 23, 27, 55-60, 232, 234, 278 [1-3], 322)

23. The Lord provides for the union of what is good and true in others by the balance between heaven and hell. What is evil and what is false are continually breathing out together from hell, and what is good and what is true are continually breathing out together from heaven. Every one of us is kept in that balance as long as we are living in this world, and this is what gives us our freedom to think, intend, speak, and act, the freedom in which we can be reformed. (On this spiritual balance that gives us our freedom, see Heaven and Hell 589-596, 597-603).

232. 4. This is why the Lord does not grant us inner access to the truths that wisdom discloses and the good that love does except as we can be kept in them to the end of our life. I need to proceed with particular care in explaining this for two reasons: first because it is vital to our salvation, and second because an appreciation of this principle is key to appreciating the laws of permission that will be dealt with in the next section [234-274]. It is vital to our salvation because, as already noted [226-227], if we first accept the divine contents of the Word and therefore of the church but then backslide from them, we profane what is holy in the most harmful way. To uncover this secret of divine providence so that rational people can see it in their own light, then, it will be laid out in the following sequence. (a) At our deeper levels, good and evil cannot coexist within us, so neither can malicious distortion and beneficent truth. (b) The Lord can bring into our deeper levels what is good and the truth that comes from it only to the extent that evil and its distortions have been banished. (c) If what is good and its truth were brought in before evil and its distortions were removed, or to a greater extent than they were removed, then we would backslide from the goodness and return to our evil. (d) When we are absorbed in evil, much that is true can be introduced into our minds and stored in our memory without being profaned. (e) The Lord in his divine providence, however, takes the greatest care that we do not accept it into our volition before we have, in our apparent autonomy, banished evils from our outer self, or do not accept it to a greater extent than we have banished our outer evils. (f) If this were done too early or too fully, then our volition would adulterate the goodness and our discernment would falsify the truth by mingling them with what is evil and with what is false. (g) This is why the Lord does not grant us the truths that wisdom discloses and the good that love does except as we can be enabled to keep them to the end of our life.