I need to grow in being small.

I need to strengthen my skills in being weak.

I need to buck up and claim complete and utter dependence on God and others.

Over the last several weeks, I feel like God has continually been leading me to the theme of dependence upon God. Seemingly whenever I draw near to God, whenever I turn my ear to hear what He might be saying, the thing that I hear is this theme of dependence.

One of the ways that I've recently felt God pointing to this issue of self-sufficiency in my life is through the 50th Psalm. It unmasks self-sufficiency for what it really is: pride and a mistaken assumption that God is somehow dependent upon us. The early verses of the Psalm recognize God as the Creator and Sustainer of all things: "The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets..." And then it comes right out and states what should be obvious: that we -- humankind, the followers of God -- are inadequate. We stand deficient. In any court of law or creation, the judgment does not fall in our favor. Even so, God doesn't begrudge us our deficiencies. He doesn't rebuke us for our lack of sacrifices or burnt offerings. In fact, it's the complete opposite!

God doesn't need us; we need God.

God doesn't need our good deeds. God doesn't even need our radical commitment to his Word or to the Gospel (except so far as these things promote an attitude of humility and dependence in our hearts towards God). God doesn't need us; we need God.

It's so basic, yet so necessary, to be reminded of these truths. God wants us to live with hearts of gratitude and dependence, not self-willed, self-sufficient, stubborn insistence on our own ways of doing things. "Sacrifice thank offerings to God," says Psalm 50:14-15, "Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you and you will honor me." It's all about gratitude and dependence. Dependence and gratitude. Verse 23 reiterates the same thing: "He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God."

I love the simple, kind-of-silly line of rhetorical questioning from Psalm 50:13, where God asks, "Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?" That is, What do you really think the sacrificial system is all about? Were you really under the impression that we are responsible for keeping God's belly full?!? It's so silly... and yet I fall into this faulty way of thinking far too often. I do it with prayer, or evangelism, or reading the Bible, or raising up Christian leaders, or raising a godly family, or maintaining sexual purity... And it's just plain silly! God doesn't need those things from me nearly as much as I need those things from God! As we revel in God's provision and protection for us, we can get off our little kingdom-building high-horses and avail ourselves to however God might want to use us (or not use us). It can feel counterintuitive... yet when I really stop and meditate on these reminders, I know them to be true.

I need to grow in being small.

I need to strengthen my skills in being weak.

I need to buck up and claim complete and utter dependence on God and others.