God does not need me.

This is a fact that I so often forget or choose to ignore. So many times I find myself drawing on my own reason to deal with the situations that arise in my experiences. When faced with life’s challenges, I naturally bring all my vast reasoning to the situation and try to “figure it out”. I usually have the best of intentions, but for some strange reason I find that when I follow my carefully laid plans without consulting the Lord, it usually confuses the situation even more. It’s like a child who tries to “help” Mommy fold the laundry, but clumsily knocks over the neat piles of already folded clothes.

I’m currently dealing with a situation where I have seen yet again in a very real way that God does not need me. It’s something that is happening to me, but I don’t understand it and I want desperately to sort it all out. It very much concerns me; after all, it’s MY life and it’s happening to ME. Doesn’t this mean that I should be an active part of the resolution? Yet, I have recently seen evidence of the fact that God does not need me or my careful and thorough reasoning to accomplish His plans for my life. Amazingly enough, this God, the Creator of the universe and the author of my life, CAN handle the things that concern me without my help. In fact, when I am out of the way, completely yielded to Him and trusting Him (like clay in the hands of an all-knowing Potter), He can work unhindered to accomplish the kind of wonderful works that only HE can do. The kind of wonderful that I WANT to experience in my life.

But the hard part is now…my hands have to be taken off of the situation I want to control; I have to purposely set myself aside to yield, trust and wait out a bewildering situation. I have to put into active application my firmly held belief that “The Lord will accomplish what concerns me….” (Ps. 138:8). And it WILL be good.