A study of the word necessity strips the word to mean that which is required, indispensable, crucial, and utterly essential for well-being and/or existence. After a conversation with a friend today, I was left thinking about what it means to need God, not just want Him, but to truly need Him, to require Him. For one who can be detrimentally too strong, independent, capable, and self-reliant for her own good, is He truly indispensable, crucial and utterly essential for my well-being and existence? It doesn't take a degree in Theology to answer this seemingly simplistic question. I am, after all, acutely aware that I certainly am not the One holding my own cells together, so of course He IS my necessity...and yet. For someone who decided early on to trust in and rely on herself only, there are still days when I am grievously guilty of struggling to survive in the power and sufficiency of my own flesh.
Facing some circumstances even today, I was tempted to handle things my own way which was to "sweep them under the rug", bury my head beneath the covers and cry. Now admittedly, this is not the most effective plan of attack but at the time it was quite alluring. Too often, leaning on my own understanding and in my own strength leads me to merely cope with life by NOT coping with it. This, I realize, is idiotic and prideful. It is also, if we're honest, a survival tactic that can only temporarily ease the discomforts of life. Trouble with these types of strategies is that they are born of Self. Self, in all its valiant and sincere attempts and intentions, is never and can never be enough. Self despises submission to anyone and anything else. Self is a subtle and stealth Saboteur who creates resistance and opposition to the Spirit and His moving in our lives. Self is never what our "selves" need. Self promises to safeguard and shield us from tragedy and hardship and that which disturbs, but Self deceives. We must, if we are to live submitted, obedient, responsive, Spirit-filled lives, identify the foolishness and danger in the tendency to trust in Self. We must comprehend to our core how thoroughly destructive it can be. At the end of the day we are powerless and incapable in and of ourselves.
The words of Jesus in John 15:5, "apart from Me you can do nothing", leave no wiggle room. No matter what resource used, the word "nothing" means nothing. Apart from Him, no matter how I might strive to, I can not order or control my world or the world. God moves and speaks and holds my existence in His loving and capable hands, I don't have to. I am wired to respond. My requirement is to require Him; to HUMBLY realize and declare my total and utter necessity of Him, to be all-together insufficient and desperately dependant of His sufficiency, for In HIM (not Kim) I live and move and have my being." (Acts 17:28)
Admittedly, sometimes it does feel good to stay in bed sobbing, and numbing reality with ice cream is tempting, but we can never find our help and our healing hiding from our Helper and Healer. At the end of the day, it is only when I embrace things with my eyes and heart wide-open, even things that are painful and terrifying, that I am available to be confronted with the truth that can and will set me free. The truth is I am lost without Him. I am desperately lost without ALL HE IS LOVING ALL I AM! I am assuredly nothing apart from Him. He IS my Necessity and I am needy. Truthfully, I am broken, fragile, vulnerable and beautifully needy...
