Meeting Needs Through Christ

I believe that God has the power to speak to me from the clouds, drop down bread from the heavens and fill my evening table with food enough for my family and anyone else who wanted to join us for dinner. 

I believe that God could miraculously take a child whose brain is damaged and make is to be completely and totally whole and new – without a blemish or sign of previous in normality. 

 I know God can do anything. 

I believe that the miracle working God that I read about in the Old Testament and the New Testament could do those same exact miracles today.  The power is still there.  His love is still the same.  I know that God still can work miracles by the power of His hand.  I also know that sometimes He uses a different way to work mightily in the lives of those whom He loves.

Sometimes He uses others.  Sometimes He uses us.  He lays a burden on our hearts; or He allows us to see the needs of another person.  He then, through the working of His Holy Spirit enables us to meet the need of that person through His power!  It’s exciting to think that I could be God’s channel wherewith He desires to show Himself mighty to another person.  Through this imperfect body God’s power can be seen to others as clearly as the Children of Israel saw Him work when they ate bread from Heaven.  Perhaps the most one of the most amazing concepts to me is that God desires to use frail, imperfect human beings to show Himself to the World today!

I wonder how many times I have missed the opportunity.  How many mornings I have been too busy to spend time with God and allow Him to lead me and direct me.  You see, it is a working of supernatural power and myself in my own flesh and through my own vision cannot see.  It’s the gentle nudging that alerts me to the eyes of someone who has entered into my presence.  It’s the conscious awareness of the needs of someone, perhaps a child who comes to church every Sunday in the same clothes because they only have that one set of dress clothes.   God alerts me to the need and then I am given the opportunity to be His hands and use His resources that He has given to me to meet that need. 

A kind word.

 A bag full of hand -me down clothes outgrown by one of my children. 

A meal for a family who has had sickness in their home. 

 The possibilities are endless; but I am convinced that because we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us (God Himself) this is how He now chooses most to work to meet the needs of others.  He does not need a fiery cloud and pillar.  He does not need to speak from the sky to tell someone that everything is going to be OK.  He has us; and when we are surrendered to His promptings we see the needs. To me, that is an even greater miracle than parting of the red sea of the lighting of Elijah’s fire.  God uses Christians to show Himself and His power to others. 

Sometimes we see how He is meeting our needs through someone else.  We stand in awe that God worked through someone who did not know our specific need but was willing to listen and to obey His voice.  We are humbled.  Sometimes we are blessed by someone who is so in love with their Savior that their time is not spent only on themselves but on doing the bidding that He has given them to do.

Such is the case with Miss V.

She saw a need.  A little boy with a brain that does not work as fast and as efficiently as others his age.  She saw a ten year old who struggled to read and to write in her Sunday school class; and rather than casting judgment and criticism she looked to what God would have her do about this need.

She did not see that she has already taught for 45 plus years and is ready to retire and have her own life.  She did not regard the fact that her feet do not move quite as fast as they did when she started teaching years ago.  She did not think of the pain in her back that causes her to see a chiropractor each and every week.  She just saw a need and knew that she could meet it.  God laid it on her heart and she knew that He would enable her with the strength to meet the need of this little boy.

So, on the designated days she takes her car out of her garage and drives to an elementary school 20 minutes from her house and picks up Zak at his classroom door.  They then drive another 10 miles to our house, come in and get a drink and then head to Dad’s desk to spend the next hour and a half learning to read. 

Can I even begin to tell you what this means to me?  I thank God for her.  I thank God  for her love for my son.  Then, I thank God for His love for my son.  You see, He saw a little boy with a brain that does not work as fast and as efficiently as others his age.  God saw a ten year old who struggled to read and write in his Sunday school class then He found a willing child of His that was equipped with the skills to help this little boy, whom He loved so much.  He showed her the need and He knew her heart.  He knew her surrender to Him.  He knew that even though her legs are not as steady as they once were  -she will obey.  He knew that even though the drive is not in her neighborhood she would just take it a little slower and pray to Him that He would help her to meet the need; and He knew He would empower her eyes to see the road and her brain to remember the directions to the school.    He knew her heart; and He knew that when He showed her what He saw that she would allow Him to strengthen her to meet the need.

I believe that God has the power to speak to me from the clouds, drop down bread from the heavens and fill my evening table with food enough for my family and anyone else who wanted to join us for dinner.  However, I know that God has an even more sure way of showing Himself mighty and loving.  It’s by using His children to meet other’s needs.  I for one, have been challenged by a woman of God who knows how to hear His voice, is not self consumed and loves her Savior more than her own life. 

God make me a woman who sees the need and allows you to work through me to meet the need that you have, in your love, shown to me.  Oh to God, that I would be a woman who allows the world to see Jesus working His love through me.  Oh, that I would lose sight of myself and give myself wholly to being what God would have me to be.  I pray that when I am old and my legs don’t work as well I will hobble out to my car, drive a little slower and pray that God will enable me to meet the needs of others through the power of God working in me!