November 11, 2014
We Need
I’m still cogitating on the
woman who feels everything she needs is right in front of her, all she has to
do to succeed is open her eyes and see it. So often in the church we tell
ourselves, and even those outside the church, about the needs in the body of
Christ. We need teachers, music directors, qualified elders, bigger buildings
... and especially young families, because without them the church will surly
die! I can only imagine how the Lord must feel when we verbalize to the world
about things we think our individual churches need; implying that our needs are
not being met. “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for
they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do
not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matt
6:7-8 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Occasionally I ponder the idea that the safest place for me, the place where my needs have been met the greatest is where I am in the moment I am there. God tells us to not fear death. In fact, He tells us to spend our lives on doing what’s right unto even dying for another or for something right. He tells us not to complain about anything, but to give thanks in everything. Sometimes I think He is telling those who know Him that their relationships to everything of their immediate surroundings, to the people there, to their Father, and even to themselves in any given moment is complete and whole, because the situation as it exists would not exist if God were not willing that it existed in the very way it does exist. And God’s will is fine. Shoot. We pray for it, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done”.
-----Lo! Every moment is unique. So, every situation is unique. And what you have in one situation may not be what you need in the next. That’s why we pull on our pants in the morning and go to work. We have before us what we need for the moment of getting out of bed, and probably for even living that day, because God has so blessed us. And the more we live in civility with one another, the more we are able to have what we need for several days, or even weeks. But we have it only in a “so to speak” manner. Our freezer is full of food at home; our closets and drawers are full of clothes; our taps hold back more water than we can use, hot water, too! But all of that having does no good for when I’m lost in the woods.
-----That’s a unique situation where needs move more from the ordinary necessities of life to particularly beneficial attitudes. When you’re cold and hungry and thirsty and lost, you don’t need what you don’t have. You need what you do have, a relationship with an intimately loving Father in whom you can trust even unto death. Though some situations do serve up death, most are escapable by cunning available only to the humbled mind. When the attitudes in the situation are what the Word prepares in us, the mind performs at its optimum, better able to notice the more imperceptible opportunities. Besides, I think being lost in the woods unto certain death would be a most glorious moment. The passage out of a rough and tumble, uncaring, chaotic existence of continuously struggling to maintain anything we need into a blissfully bright and glorious eternal day of comfort, joy, and infinite sufficiency would be a welcome step indeed.
-----But we don’t rush to make that step because we serve a God who seems very paradoxical. We are so complete in the present moment, but so lacking for the next. We’ve been perfected in Christ, yet we move about in errors at least, and often in sin. We know Him, yet we can hardly describe Him. Starving to death, we worship Him.
-----Worship. Drawing the very core of your being into congruency with Him. Even in a case where very little is known about Him, worship can yet fill every moment to its brim, because worship starts with desire. And to desire Him is to call on Him. And to call on Him is to have Him. And to have Him completes one’s needs, even if the need is to endure hardship.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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