The Blog

So lately I have been thinking about our need for God, because whether we think we have things under control or not, we do need Him in our lives. I’m not talking about the kind of need where you didn’t get much sleep the night before because you stayed up cramming for your final and now you ‘need’ a cup of coffee. I’m talking about the kind of need where you are walking through the middle of the desert and you can see no end to it. Your thirst is unbearable, equaled only by the sun beating down on your neck. You look around frantically for some sort of relief from this hell, but see nothing but more desert behind and before you. And as you faint under the scorching sun all you want to do is lay there and die. You desperately need water. Then through your hazed vision you see the figure of a man standing in the distance, and you can make out a canteen slung over his shoulder. Hope. And you need desperately for that water to pass over your lips and flow through you.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I cannot survive without filling myself with God. No matter how much I can accomplish, it amounts to nothing without Him. No matter how hard I work, if I do not work to serve Him, it is vanity. And no matter how good of a person I might be by this world’s standards, I am filth without Christ’s covering.

Without filling ourselves with God’s word, and just spending time with Him, we are neglecting the only chance we are afforded to have any good in us. If we are not being led by God, then who’s doing the leading. We are lead by our own ambitions, our vanity, our insecurities, our neediness, greed: our flesh. There is no good inside of us apart from God. We need His character.

Paul puts it best in saying, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:15-19 NIV).

We can fumble over ourselves time and time again, but without God the result will always be empty. And as much as we may know what’s best, and understand what it is that we should do, and how we should live out our lives knowing is only part of the battle. We need to take hold of God, the only good thing we have, and hinge every part of our lives on Him. When we do that, we recognize our need for God. And that is what it takes.

Written By Brittany Kirkendoll