Tami’s Meandering Thoughts

“…and human hands can’t serve his needs – for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.”
Acts 17:25

If you were in church last Sunday then you will know that my birthday is tomorrow. I don’t tell you that so I get well-wishes or attention (who, at my age, craves birthday attention anyway?) :0) I tell you this just to introduce an interesting conversation Tim and I had today with another couple.

While we all talked together, Tim made the comment that I never tell him what I want for my birthday. My response? “Well, I don’t need anything”. Now, of course we all have needs, and, as believers, I think it is our job to help take care of each other as well as others around us; repeatedly that theme plays out in the New Testament. As we interact with others our first thoughts should be, “How can I help that person?” “How can I meet that person’s need with what I have?” Those are honorable questions when aimed at another human. So often, though, I think we turn that question towards God….” How can I meet God’s need with what I have?”

We all KNOW that God needs nothing of ours – he’s the one who gave everything to us in the first place, after all! But I guess when I read that verse today, “human hands can’t serve his needs – for he has no needs.” I began pondering how often I think I am doing God some great favor for serving him, for using the gifts and talents he has given me for serving him. Man, he’s a lucky God to have someone like me on his side! (obviously that is all tongue-in-cheek, but you get my idea). We get so excited and a little proud when somehow God used us. However, God has no needs. Human hands can’t serve his needs. Sure, he will use us, but he doesn’t NEED us! He will go on being an awesome, loving, faithful God whether we serve him or not. So, why does he even bother with us then? Why does he repeatedly forgive us and patiently teach us? He loves us – with an undeserved, unmerited, unconditional love. We often love because we get something from the other person. God loves without getting or needing anything in return. Why would he even bother involving himself in our world if he doesn’t need us?

“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him – though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist.” (Acts 17: 27-28) His purpose for loving us, for being involved in our world, for ordering the universe is so humans will “feel their way toward him and find him”. In Greek this means “to grope” “to seek”. Doesn’t that make you proud now? Not only does God not need us, he looks on us as a mother would look on her baby as the infant lays on the ground desperately trying to control his movements to reach out, to seek that bright object near him. Just like the baby, we fumble around, seeking, feeling out who God is. The wonder of it all lies in God allowing us to find him in spite of our fumbling attempts. As we grope along together, serving, loving, helping each other seek our God, let’s remind each other that everything we have and everything we are comes because God loves us – not because God needs us.