God will become all you need Him to be
when you need Him to be all that you need.
Jill Briscoe
God created man in His likeness and to live in such a relationship with Him that all of its needs would be met in Him. Mankind, having rebelled through its spokesman in Adam, has become so distanced from God that there is no realization of the need for Him. It goes its own way, oblivious to the infinite resources at its disposal. Even those who have been drawn near to Him seldom realize the supply that He desires to bring to their lives. The need of God for part of their lives is acknowledged, but they are quite content to seek other sources for what they desire or consider useful. There is a tendency to compartmentalize Him in our thinking, regarding Him as useful for salvation when the end of physical life comes, but desirous of having other needs met elsewhere. The need of Him is only partial, not total. They do not realize that even the needs that are met elsewhere than Him are ultimately supplied by Him as well. The food, the clothes, the homes, the relationships with others are all ultimately supplied from His Gracious hand. Every provision we experience is His gift to us. Accepting provisions from Him without seeking Him as the primary One to be desired actually serves only to turn our hearts away from Him. We see this in Hosea 13:6. “When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.” To seek and depend upon the provisions of God rather than the person of God is to ultimately turn away from God. Our dependence must rest on Him and Him alone.
The tragedy of dependence upon what God has given us rather than God Himself is brought home to us multiple times in the scriptures. The most notable of these is a man’s story with which we are all familiar. He was set apart from birth to be used mightily by the Lord. It is recorded that he grew and the Lord blessed him. His dependence was ultimately revealed to be, not in the Almighty God who had given him his strength, but in his strength alone. Judges 16:20 tells us the story of his failure. “Then she called, ‘Samson, The Philistines are upon you!’ He awoke from his sleep and thought, ‘I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.’ But he did not know that the Lord God left him.” These words, “not knowing that the Lord God left him” are some of the most sobering in all of scripture. Oswald Chambers has this comment about our relationship with God. “If you are depending upon anything but Him, you will never know when He is gone.”
The Psalmist captures the thought behind Jill Briscoe’s statement with these words in Psalm 62:1-2. “My soul finds rest in God alone, my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” David is declaring here his dependence upon God alone, not His provision, His gifts, the experiences he has had with God, but God himself. He is declaring that God Himself is all that He needs. The Old Testament is replete with the words of the Lord guaranteeing this to us with the very name He has given to us, Jehovah, the becoming One. Jehovah, which means “I am becoming all you need me to be” is the One who will become all we need Him to be when we need Him to be all that we need. He illustrates this by including other names along with His name Jehovah, Jehovah Jireh, “I am the One who provides for you”, Jehovah Nissi, “I am your banner,” Jehovah Raah, “I am your shepherd,” Jehovah Rophe, “I am your healer,” Jehovah Tsidkenu, “I am your righteousness,” Jehovah Shalom, “I am your peace.” This is only a partial list, illustrative rather than exhaustive, of all He will become for us.
My wife of 56 years, Beverly, went to be with the Lord in September 2021. With the start of the year 2022, I purposed to read through her Bible, in which I found copious notes along the edges of the text! In Exodus chapter 14, she had underlined the story where the cloud (for guidance) moved around the Israelites and became a pillar of fire (for protection). (Exodus 14:19-20) She had pencilled the following comment in the margin. “God becomes whatever I need” This is what she believed and this is what she experienced in her life. Hannah Whitall Smith has the following comment about the belief that God becomes whatever is needed.
“The last and greatest lesson that the soul has to learn is the fact that God, and God alone, is enough for all its needs. This is the lesson that all His dealings with us are meant to teach; and this is the crowning discovery of our whole Christian life. God is enough!
No soul can be really at rest until it has given up all dependence on every thing else and has been forced to depend on the Lord alone. As long as our expectation is from other things, nothing but disappointment awaits us. Feelings may change, and will change with our changing circumstances; doctrines and dogmas may be upset; christian work may come to naught; prayers may seem to lose their fervency; promises may seem to fail; everything that we have believed in or depended upon may seem to be swept away, and only God is left, just God, the bare God, if I may be allowed the expression; simply and only God.” The God of All Comfort. Moody Press 1956, Pages 241,243.
Have you come to the conclusion that God becomes whatever you need? Is your dependence placed solely in Him? The rest that God has for us is only to be found when it is in Him alone. May the Lord lead you to find your soul refreshed daily as you discover that God, and God alone, is enough.
In Christ, Richard Spann