Using Means and Trusting God
The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth
to show himself strong on behalf of those who wholly rely upon Him.
2 Chronicles 16:9
Use means but trust wholly in God. It sounds so simple, yet to put it into
practice is all together another matter.
Here’s an example. In Matthew 14
a great crowd had followed Jesus into the wilderness where there was no food. Jesus’ disciples urge him to disperse the
crowd that they might go and find food for themselves. However, Jesus turns to His disciples and
says, “They need not go away;
you give them something to eat”
(Mt.
Put yourself in the disciples’ place for a moment, and their response is
all too understandable. They are
pragmatists. They look at the means
available, place their trust in the means and conclude what is humanly
possible. They have five loaves of bread
along with two fish. They know that this
is insufficient to feed five thousand men plus women and children. Five loaves of bread and two fish may feed a
dozen people or so, but not the multitude before them.
Jesus, on the other hand, uses the means before Him—the bread and the
fish—but instead of trusting the means, He trusts in God. Jesus knows that the amount of food is not
the decisive thing; God is. “Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had
given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted”
(Mt. 14:11).
Quite a contrast, isn’t it? The
disciples, using means and trusting in the means. Jesus, using means and trusting in God. The disciples, seeing and expecting only what
man can do. Jesus, seeing and receiving
what God can do. Who do you relate to
here? Almost all of us connect with the
disciples. It seems that we are
hard-wired to trust in means, not God.
We are self-dependent and not God-dependent. The lesson is clear: When we depend on ourselves, we get what man
can produce. When we place our
confidence in God then we get what God can do.
God clearly wants us to use means, but just as clearly He wants us to trust
in Him as we use the means He supplies:
“The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by
his great strength. The war horse is a
false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who
fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love . . . . Our soul waits for
the LORD; he is our help and our shield”
(Ps. 33:16-18, 20). We may use
the horse or our strength or our wisdom, but our trust is to be in God alone to
help and deliver.
A prayer by pastor John Piper has been teaching me the importance of this
great truth and how it works out in everyday life. Here, I think, is what it sounds like to give
thanks for God’s good means but to renounce reliance upon those means and rely
on God himself:
Lord, I have a text and I have an idea and a mind and
hands and a computer and health and energy and a free day and safety from
interruption. If I rely on these things--these good things that you yourself
have given me--then what the people will get on Sunday morning will be what a
man can produce. And, Lord, they don't need another man-made thing. They live
with man-made things and ideas all week long. What your people need--what I
need--is something beyond what man can make. Something supernatural from you.
So I now renounce
reliance on these things. I know the text is good, the idea is good, my mind
and fingers and computer and health and energy and freedom are good. But I
renounce reliance on them and look to you, and ask that in and under and over
and around and through all those good things you would work so deeply and so
decisively and so graciously that what I say on Sunday would not be the work of
a mere man, but the work and the word of God.
This type of confidence in God does not only apply to sermon preparation,
it applies to every area of our lives.
God wants us to use the means that He has given us, but not to rely on
those means or human resources, but to rely on Him. Here is a way that you might pray as you go
to work in the morning seeking to rely on God:
Lord, I have a
beautiful day and good health. I have a
good place to work and a sharp mind. You
have given me strength and wisdom. I
have made it through many days of work in the past and I know that I can get
through this day as well. But Lord I
renounce reliance upon all these things, and I look to You now to make this day
more than I could ever make it if I depend on myself and my resources. Lord, will You go with me and before me this
day? Would You minister to me and enable
me to minister to others in ways that I could never imagine possible? O Lord, make my work this day not just the
work of man, but the very work of God through me. I look to You now and commit this day to Your
glory and honor. Amen.
Give thanks to God for all the good resources that He gives you each day
and then prayerfully and decisively shift all your confidence away from these
things to Christ. Remember, “The eyes of
the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on
behalf of those who wholly rely upon Him” (2 Chron. 16:9). God never misses any opportunity to
demonstrate His strength on behalf of weak men and women like us who will truly
rely upon Him and not means. O, what a
very great and precious promise!
May you see and rejoice in the strength of God as you rely on Him and not
on means this day,
James
__________________________________
©
James Calderazzo
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