Without A Desperate Need

Good morning! We don't want any desperate needs around here, thank you! I'll paraphrase Bilbo Baggins just a little this morning. No, I haven't seen the new movie. After watching Peter Jackson's rather liberal interpretation of the Lord of the Rings, I think I'll just skip his Hobbit mash-up. We learn in this world that we don't want something through difficult experience. We learn to ask God to take away our desperate needs, but what is causing us to need God in the first place? "Everything would be fine and I would give gratitude and glory to God if all of these problems were just taken away." But it wouldn't be that way, and we know it. At least not until God through His Holy Spirit makes us into something better than what we are now.

A desperate need in life brings us to our prayerful knees so much more often than just a little irritation or minor problem might get us to that same position. If you suffer one health crisis after another, it may not be eating the wrong things, or living in the wrong house, or working in the wrong place. Those crises may bring you to God much better than any stretch of good health and happiness ever did. If we could see the tree our little seed of faith has grown into, we might better understand the desperate needs of this life. For now, we must trust that God is growing that tree through each crisis, desperate need, and emergency. Tough to think like that, I know.

A tough prayer would go something like, "Lord, I need another desperate need or crisis so that I can grow closer to you and my faith will become strong!" We don't typically seek out suffering and, as Bilbo might note, emergencies make one late for dinner. We like comfort, good food, and enough money to spend and to lend. No, I haven't recently read The Hobbit, but there does seem to be a theme going on this morning. Without a desperate need, I might forget who provided all the good things in life. Books are good things, and the best one of all comforts me in my desperate needs, criseses, and emergencies. I don't like those things in my life, but then it isn't my life anymore. I belong to Jesus and He will walk me through the dark valleys.

Bucky