Matthew 15:32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

Sometimes God’s calling is very specific. Here, Jesus has a particular task in mind, along with a particular lesson He wants to teach His disciples. We too are called on many different levels. We are called first to repentance and faith. (Mark 1:15) Then we are called to take up our crosses and follow Jesus, and as Luke rightly notes, that is a daily commitment. (Luke 9:23) It is only then that the calling to specific tasks, such as making disciples, happens. And of course, there are countless subdivisions within those latter tasks. We need to rejoice that God would choose to use us at all, when He has the entire universe at His disposal. Sometimes His tasks for us seem impossible, as in the instance here. The irony is that the disciples had already seen Him feed an even larger crowd with one boy’s lunch, yet they still viewed their current situation with entirely human eyes. We too fall in the same way, failing to remember how marvelously God has carried us along in spite of ourselves. I wonder how tired God gets of our lack of faith? He shows Himself gracious and faithful and loving in countless ways, yet we stubbornly fixate on our circumstances and fail to look to Him in gratitude and expectation. The marvelous thing is that He will use those very circumstances to teach us more about ourselves and about Him, so we truly have nothing to be anxious about.

I am in the middle of a lesson on this very thing. I have plenty of things to do, but feel no motivation for any of them. I am not to depend on my feelings, or be bound by them, but rather know that my God has not changed in the slightest, and He will carry me through this season of my life as well. At the moment I am facing completing the choosing and printing of the pictures for my photo exhibit that starts in less than two weeks. I also have the service tomorrow, for which I’m thankfully already prepared. I have hospital visitation I want to do, but I don’t want to do it soaked with sweat, and showering in the middle of the day is irritating. We have other calendar items coming up, and my fleshly impulse it to give up on it all. I know who is behind that feeling, and it’s not my loving Lord! As He told Paul, His grace is sufficient for me. (2 Corinthians 12:9) Just as Paul reacted to being told that, I need to rejoice at the awareness of my own inability, because that makes room for God to display Himself in and through me, for His glory.

Father, thank You for this very timely reminder. Thank You for bringing the song, Just When I Need Him, to my mind as I was waking up this morning. Help me rest, relax, and rejoice in the reality that song expresses, so that Your purposes for me may be accomplished on Your schedule for Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!