What Do You Need?
Before I make a cake I conduct a little inventory of the refrigerator and pantry to see what I need. Then I make a shopping list. This is a routine activity that causes me little angst. I don’t scold myself because the vanilla extract is low or feel ashamed because I used up the last of the eggs. I just head off to the store.
When I read 1st Corinthians 13 or Colossians 3, I often find myself in distress over how little of the love ingredients I have to adequately serve my neighbors (spouse, children, colleagues, etc.) I either admonish myself for my shortcomings, bristle at the demand or try to brush the need aside and let those people fend for themselves. I don’t immediately take my “shopping list” to the source where the missing ingredient can be supplied. And yet, that is what our all-sufficient Lord has asked us to do.
I am not trying to trivialize the process of prayer. The interesting thing about this is that He knows! He knows what we are missing and is ready to supply all our needs according to his abundant riches. But we have to ask! What keeps us from asking is the same pride, rebellion, independence and mistrust that has plagued humankind since the Garden. What grand notions we have of ourselves compared to how He sees us!
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. Psalm 103:14-15 NIV
Beating ourselves up about these limitations is to suggest that we should have already attained that which only God is able to build in us. He allows us to enter situations like marriage, parenting, communities, workplaces, and churches where our needs will soon become painfully obvious so that we will realize our dependence upon Him.
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.
Hymn: “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”
Words: Joseph Scriven, music: Charles C. Converse.
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