Dependence, “I Need Thee Every Hour”

This last month has been one filled with trials and temptations. I have experienced lows in new ways that I have not in the last 25 years of my life.

Over a year ago, during our church’s prayer week my pastor shared about how he set an alarm on his phone for every hour to play “oh how I need thee, Every hour I need thee” you know the song? I was so encouraged that I have not forgotten that Sunday. This last month more than ever have I felt the need to be dependent on God every hour. When you are in the season of developing a ministry team and raising support, you are smiling ear to ear one hour with excitement and crying the next. I’m pretty sure last week there was a day when I experienced all 18 emotions on my feelings chart. Its a testing, trying and rewarding season of depending on the Lord for grace, for love, for boldness, and learning to live each moment for its most.

We are not promised tomorrow, but how much of how we live is based on the next event, party, weekend, job, semester, paycheck, etc.? I struggle with longing for the next season, especially now when I am working toward being on campus full time in the Spring. I am so, so, so excited to be at Marshall University but I’m not promised life until February. What if this week was all I had? I want to make sure I am living this moment to the full. I cannot wait to see how God meets me in new ways each day that I wake up with breath in my lungs and a heart that continues to beat.

This morning I woke up ready to see people, call people and enjoy the moments in front of me which is a miracle after going through a month of struggling to get out of bed, having little motivation to do much of anything, let alone my job. I woke up today ready to eat well, get exercise, spend time with Jesus, do my arabic homework and cast my vision so that people will invest deeper into this ever expanding kingdom.

Early this week I asked the Lord to bring me to a new place of trusting him and instead of a trial this week, like I expected to face, I’ve had new joy, new hope and an excitement that can only be from him. He is so good to us. Do not forget to thank him for sustaining us each moment. We really are hanging off a cliff, but we act like we are walking through corn fields in the middle of Iowa instructing those around us to bend as we ask them. The lord brings us to a place where he shows us that we need him, and oh what a place that is.