Beside
the Well
Paula
Rineheart in, Strong Women Soft Hearts,
said, “Needs are not enemies to conquer, they are part of what keeps us
returning to the Lord.” (p 101) That
left me meditating for several days.
Needs are not enemies to conquer? Am I looking for some celestial type of existence? One in which every need is met and I am not
bothered by any discomfort?
Spurgeon
also thought on this idea when he said, “If because you are Christians you
promise yourselves a long lease of temporal happiness, free from troubles and
afflictions, it is as if a soldier going to the wars would promise himself
peace and continual truce with the enemy…If there be no war there can be no
victory; ease is therefore our loss and hindrance….nearness to God is the one
desideratum [something desired] (p 135).
Okay, so
needs have their place in life. Since I
am the type of person who likes things to be solved and sorted, how am I going
to deal with the fact that needs will always be with me?
I
imagined myself using my old tactic of the shoulder toss based on 1 Peter 5:7, “Casting
all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
I take that burden or care—or need—and cast it over my shoulder to my
Lord. He will take care of it. He has promised over and over in His word to
take care of me and He knows my needs, even before I do.
So I can
saunter through life without a care in the world because God has my back? That
might sound a bit trite, but if God knows I have needs, promises to meet them,
and will not give me anything too large for me to toss over my shoulder, then
why can’t I walk lightly with a spring in my step? Why would I want to lug that ball and chain
of unmet needs down the path with me when I can give them to the Lord?
The
wonderful thing about our Lord is He knows my heart. He knows I have trouble letting things go and
trusting Him to care for them. He knows
I am a “fixer”. He made me that
way. But the best fix I can ever have
for my needs is the knowledge of His ability and the faith that says the nearer
I walk with God, the lighter the burden.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28, 29).
I don’t have to conquer my needs or
fear them. They can flow alongside me because
they prompt me to look to my Lord who is able to take care of every one of
them.
“These
things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye
shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
Rinehart, Paula, Strong
Women Soft Hearts, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, Tennessee, 2001
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon, Illustrations and Meditations or Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden,
Passmore & Alabaster, London, 1883
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