Love is Powerful

Aren’t you glad that our God is powerful? That the One we love is also able to save us? That He is worthy of our praise? I was thinking about what this means—that God is powerful, not some artificial teddy bear.

I thought about how, sometimes, I look at someone’s needs and I know I don’t have the time or ability to help them. And I realize that I myself do not have the power to help them, but God does.

Sometimes I’m in that situation too. Especially the times last year when I couldn’t do my CS or ECE project, and I knew there was no one who could help me. My code was beyond repair, my knowledge deficit beyond help. People could comfort me and tell me that it’s okay; they could give me tips, or explain the directions. People could love me the best they could, but they had no power to change my situation.

The power to change situations is important; we are a needy and desperate people. We need God; God gives life.

What does it mean to need God, to be desperate in our need?... I remember my desperation last year when I was in ECE lab and didn’t understand what to do. I remember telling myself that I would be willing to do anything for someone to help me. It was really scary to even think that I ever thought something like that for something so silly. But that actually is how helpless I felt. I was so grateful that someone who didn’t even know me was willing to work with me, although I knew nothing, and he basically did the lab for me or told me what to do. After that lab, I called my mom and cried because it was just such a scary experience—feeling so desperate that you can’t think of anything you wouldn’t do to get help. I’ve never felt that desperate before, and have not felt that desperate since then; at least not about non-spiritual things. In the same way we are helpless when it comes to being able to save ourselves from death. We can’t. but God can. And He has.

And so after thinking about this analogy from own life, I understood better what trusting in God was about, and what it means to really need God, to be desperate spiritually. We are not trusting in someone who doesn’t exist, who is weak, who has weaknesses. We are trusting the One who is worthy of our trust. It is a trust that makes sense. God is worthy. And we need Him. We desperately need Him.