Your Needs Can Direct You To Him
All believers need need. Yes, you read that right. We need our weaknesses. We need to see that we are not strong, so that we will turn to Christ and His strength. It is when we have failed that we realize we cannot minister by our own abilities or talents. It is through our faults and shortcomings that we come to seek a source of enablement outside of ourselves.
The reality of our failures paves the way for us to see the beauty of God and His provision.
When our defeats have brought us low enough that we see we are not enough, the Lord lifts our eyes to His face, and it is then that we realize He is enough.
Your love for others will grow cold, and you will look upon a God Whose love knows no bounds.
Your strength and desire for endurance will burn low, and you will turn to see a God with limitless strength.
Your own wisdom will, at some point, take you the wrong direction, and you will behold a God who is never confused or lost.
As you and I walk with Him day by day, we must turn to Him in our mistakes. We will find that our failed human attempts can lead us to know Him more if we let them.
The more we see who He is, the more captivating He is to us. As time and time again He meets our need with His all sufficient grace, we will learn to “run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1b-2a).
Your Needs Can Help You Serve Others
Not only will your weaknesses help you learn to look at Christ instead of yourself, but they will also season you to understand and be patient with others and their faults. If you know your limitations, you are more likely to be compassionate with others as well.
J.C. Metcalfe once said,
“It is more than comforting to realize that it is those who have plumbed the depths of failure to whom God invariably gives the call to shepherd others. This is not a call given to the gifted, the highly trained, or the polished as such. Without a bitter experience of their own inadequacy and poverty they are quite unfitted to bear the burden of spiritual ministry. It takes a man who has discovered something of the measures of his own weakness to be patient with the foibles of others. Such a man also has a first-hand knowledge of the loving care of the Chief Shepherd, and His ability to heal one who has come humbly to trust in Him alone. Therefore he does not easily despair of others, but looks beyond sinfulness, willfulness, and stupidity to the might of unchanging love. The Lord Jesus does not give the charge, ‘Be a shepherd to My lambs…to My sheep,’ on hearing Peter’s self-confident affirmation of undying loyalty, but He gives it after he has utterly failed to keep his vows and has wept bitterly in the streets of Jerusalem”
Your Needs Do Not Have to Discourage You
Do not despair when you find that you are not enough. Do not seek to figure it out, fix it, or try even harder to do great things for the Lord.
Depend on Him.
Know that He wants to produce fruit in you.
Accept that He is the only one who can do so in your life.
Trust that He is already producing that fruit as you keep your eyes on Him.
He desires to multiply that fruit as you mature, and He will be continually molding you into a believer who will affect this world for His glory.
