Dependency: The Safety Of The Unmet Need

The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help.

1 Timothy 5:5

Several men went on a mission trip to Haiti where they met a nineteen-year-old boy who loved Christ deeply. He impressed them so profoundly that they invited him to visit the United States.

Upon arrival a whole new world opened up before this young Haitian’s eyes. He had never slept between sheets, never had three meals all on the same day, never used indoor plumbing, and never tasted McDonald’s.

While traveling the U.S., this godly young man made many new friends. At the end of a six-weeks-long visit, his sponsors hosted a farewell dinner in his honor. After dinner several members of the group offered warm parting remarks. Then they asked the young Haitian if he would like to say anything.

“Yes,” he said as he rose, “I would. I want to thank you so much for inviting me here. I have really enjoyed this time in the United States. But I am also very glad to be going home. You have so much in America, that I’m beginning to lose my grip on my day-to-day dependency on Christ.”

Do you have “so much” that you find it hard to keep a grip on your day-to-day dependency on Christ? Or worse, have you lost your grip?

When we don’t need to depend on Christ, we will not. It is part—maybe even a curse—of human nature. Our natural tendency is to depend on self, not Christ. Depending on Christ is an act of the will by faith, not the natural disposition of our heart.

The Prayer for an Unmet Need

I have prayed that God will always keep some major unmet need in my life so that I will always depend upon Him. To be really in need, like the widow in 1 Timothy 5:5, creates dependency. To have so much, as the young Haitian observed, creates self-sufficiency. When our lives prosper, the natural tendency is to lose our grip.

Someone called my prayer courageous. I disagree. It is not a prayer of courage, but of fear—the fear of a holy God. For God has the power to give us what we deserve, whether good or bad. I have come to fear, with reverence and awe, the God who is, for He is a consuming fire.

The Scriptures teach that “the widow who is really in need…putt her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help” (v. 5). Are you in need? Do you put your hope in God? Do you continue to pray night and day and ask God for help? Or do you have so much that you don’t need to depend on Christ for the details of your life?

If you have lost—or are losing—your grip on your day-to-day dependency on Christ, ask God for an unmet need. When you are “really in need,” you will put all your hope in God, not your own ability. You will pray night and day and ask God for help, you will not depend on your own resources. You will use your ability and resources, but you will depend on Christ.

A friend of mine frequently says, “You will never know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.” God loves people who depend upon Him, people who stop pursuing the God they want and surrender to the God who is.

First Timothy 5:6 continues, “But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives.” Is your faith in Christ dead or alive? When we live for pleasure, we lose our grip. When “so much” gets in the way of our day-to-day dependency on Christ, we grieve the Holy Spirit.

Ask God to make you more like the widow who put her hope in God alone and continued to pray and ask God for help. That is day-to-day dependency on Christ. If you do this, you will never lose your grip. She depended on God because she was “really in need.” There is safety in an unmet need. That’s not courageous; that’s just smart.

I SURRENDER

Dear Father, I must admit I have so much that it is hard for me to maintain a good grip on my day-to-day dependency on Christ. Let me know the blessing and joy of being really in need so that I may put my hope in You alone and not my own ability and resources. Work in me to desire to pray night and day and ask You for help. How I long to know the God who really is. I want to be different, to be a Biblical Christian. By faith I make a full, total, complete, no-reserves, no-regrets surrender of my life to You. Amen.