Not Needed But Wanted

Isn’t the world God made wonderful! It’s a shame in our pride and arrogance, we too often think that our lives are about us, that we are the center, as if the world revolves around our needs, wants, and desires – as if we are the main character when, in fact, God is and we are blessed that he cares to include us at all.

For me, this past week has been about setting myself aside and asking God to bless some very special people as I held them up in prayer, hoping for the privilege of being an instrument of his blessings. I wanted express my love for them and felt the best and only way to do this was by asking God to bless their lives. I took the gifts God has been refining in me and shared them to the best of my ability, in the hope that God would transform my offering with his presence and convey on others the blessings I could not begin to imagine or bring about. As I reflect back on this week, I have to laugh at myself because, though my wanting to bless others was sincere, I now realize that God was the one who instilled this desire in me in the first place – probably his way of including me in the plan he had for these people all along.  He didn’t need me to ask or to offer my abilities to fulfill his plan – I did. I needed to ask to share the joy of the blessing he intended all along.

Too often, I lose sight of the fact that God is what is so wonderful about me – not the gifts he gave me or the things he enables me to achieve. If I am congratulating myself or concerned only for how I am affected as life unfolds, then I am missing the best part of who I am – the One who created me and sustains the very life I enjoy. It really is all about God and, in his inexplicable grace, he chooses to include me. When I set aside myself, my goals, needs, and desires, and step out of the spotlight so that it may shine on the One deserving the attention and glory, I find myself filled with a joy and satisfaction I could never know otherwise – the joy and satisfaction of acknowledging and being in the presence of a holy and loving God who doesn’t need me but wants me. He knows all there is to know about me and wants to love and care for me all the same. Because he loves me, I matter to him and that’s why he includes me in his plans – so that in the act of blessing others, I too will be blessed.

About the pictures:

Pittsburgh, PA (June 2010)