Thursday, June 1, 2017

Week Twenty-Two - Needs

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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