In My Need
As a young wife and mother, I didn’t think there was hardly any wisdom you could gain from me…
I don’t feel qualified in my age and short experience of motherhood to offer much encouragement. So I thought long and hard about what I might write to no avail. Then one day as I was driving around running errands with my 8-month-old, a song from my playlist came on with lyrics that caught my attention. The song was “Yet Not I But Through Christ in Me.” The lyrics go like this “for in my need, His power is displayed.” I began to think on this line for days, and in those days of thinking I knew this was my topic - needs. Needs, we all have them…as a young mother, this area seemed to grow rapidly after I had my son.
As mothers, we always feel this sense of…constant and growing-by-the-minute…need.
Need more sleep, need more joy, need more friends, need more time, need peace and quiet and the list could go on for miles. We also tend to feel the need to get out of our needs as quickly as possible. Needs are uncomfortable and uncertain! Our needs can often make us feel anxious, angry, depressed, lonely. But this song and some verses that I will share later really helped reveal to me how we can turn the sorrow of our needs into the joy of our needs.
In our need, the Lord’s power is directly seen. What area could the Lord work in our lives if there was no need? There would be no reason for the Savior of the world. He came in our need to save us. I could think of about 100 needs at this very moment that I would wish away, but why? I would be pushing the One who wants to meet those needs away by simply meeting those needs myself or wishing my needs away.
Matthew 6:25-26 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
How precious are these verses to know that the Lord meets the needs of the birds. How much more will He meet us in our need - the ones who were created in His image and whom He gave His own life for.
His power, love, grace and mercy is shown through the many and ever-changing needs of our lives. Whether the list of our needs has 2 or 157 things on it (mine tends to have 158 things), the Lord wants to be the One to meet them all. The way He meets us in our need may be different than we desire though. My need may be more sleep, but the Lord may not meet that need with more hours of sleep in the night, but maybe more strength through Him to get me through the day despite my weariness. Maybe I'm in need of more friendships, but instead of Him meeting that need with a physical person, He might meet it with joy and contentment in knowing that the Lord will never leave us nor forsake us. So look diligently for the answer of the Lord in the needs of our lives as it may look different than we see in our moments of sorrow.
Some needs are small and some are large. The Lord knows and sees them all. As He meets our needs in His time, will, and as He sees fit. We get a front row seat to see the Lord’s hand directly at work in our lives. Even in the things that seem small and meaningless to us, the Lord can show Himself the most in. So bring it all to Him…the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, He wants it all. Let’s look to the Lord in the joy of our needs as an opportunity to see His power displayed directly in them.
Always remember, “He is the God who sees.” - Genesis 16:13
Psalm 23:1-3a - “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul…”
