"The question for us, then, is whether we trust in God's power. And the problem for us is that in our culture we are tempted at every turn to trust in our power instead. So the challenge for us is to live in such a way that we are radically dependent on and desperate for the power that only God can provide."After reading that, the next day, I read this from The Life of Elijah
"The dangerous assumption we unknowingly accept in the American dream is that our greatest asset is our own ability."
"As long as we achieve our desires in our own power, we will always attribute it to our own glory."
"While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God."
"Where there is a man who takes his place in the dust before the Most High, it will soon be made apparent before others that a power beyond his own energizes him."I'm not always the most observant of people, but it seemed to me like God was trying to tell me something about humbling myself and relying on Him! But deep down, I didn't really believe that I needed him for anything at the moment. I was prepared to lead a devotional at prayer meeting on Wednesday night, and I had some great insight into the passage I was going to lead so I was totally psyched to give the short talk on Daniel 1:1-7. I was also in charge of leading our small group Bible study on Thursday night on the entire chapter of Daniel 1, but since I had insight for that first section in Daniel 1, surely I was going to have more great insight into the rest of the chapter, right?
So Wednesday rolls around, and I'm all prepared to give my devotional at night, and I planned to prepare the Bible study after prayer meeting. I give the devotional, and I was pretty happy with how it went, but after I got home, I all of a sudden felt dead tired. For some reason, I just wanted to roll over and
Turns out, I woke up at 7:45, got to work later than usual, and it just happened that I was so engrossed in my work that I didn't take a short break to eat my lunch at 3 (this NEVER happens). I resolved that I was going to spend the last 45 minutes before I left to prepare the Bible study. And so I did. I read and reread the passage. I circled stuff here and there and wrote some questions that might be applicable. But really, I had nothing. Nothing was coming to me. I sat there with my face hands on my head and admitted to God that I had nothing, and that nothing was coming, and just asked Him to bless the Bible study. Praying for the Bible study was my last resort. And so I spent some time praying for the Bible study because there wasn't really anything else I could do.
And praise be to God, the Bible study was much better than I could have imagined it. Even though I didn't really have any real good observations during my prep time, everyone else had great observations and insights, and I felt like the participation and discussion was better than it normally is. We had a great discussion about the passage followed by a good time of sharing. It was awesome, and without a doubt, none of this was my doing. It was all God. I didn't really know what I was going to say or what direction the study was going to be, but God somehow made it work. It isn't that things will always work out this way, and not preparing well isn't an excuse to test the faithfulness of God, but I'm grateful that God used this opportunity to remind me of his grace and power how much I need to rely on him and not on myself. After all, it's never up to me how "good" a Bible study is, so I need to be seeking His will and power more often.
We also actually spent a good amount of time during Bible study discussing self-reliance, and one of the guys reminded the group of the following awesome verse, which pretty much sums up this entire post:
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
- 2 Corinthians 12:9
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