Feeling Needy?
“The universe is expanding faster than expected,” reports Mike Wall, on the space.com website. The expected rate, based on earlier assumptions and calculations, is 41.9 miles per second per megaparsec; one megaparsec is roughly 3.26 million light years. The new rate appears to be closer to 46 miles per second per megaparsec. I am a novice in these things, but given the nature of God I’m not surprised that His created universe is expanding.
God is inherently life-giving, filled and spilling over with abundance. Being self-sufficient, He is the source of all created things and He has always been overflowing in His very nature. So it makes sense that from Him there is a continual outpouring of energy, perpetual expansion.
From the very beginning (that is, before “the beginning” of Genesis 1:1) God was expanding. At the very beginning, God could not be confined as a single person, but He produced a Son, equal to Himself, an infinite and eternally begotten Son. In turn, if thinking in sequence is appropriate to things of eternity, the Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, became the third person of the Triune God. (If you want to start exploring more about this, you might begin with John Starke’s article, “A Pastoral Case for the Filioque Clause” on the Gospel Coalition website.)
What has this to do with your feeling needy—your longing for peace and joy, stability and vitality, for satisfaction and assurance? Everything! It has everything to do with where you go when you are lacking what you need.
The people of God who have run the race ahead of us, who have felt those same needs, tell us that God is like an overflowing fountain, a year-round Niagara Falls, which sends 3,160 tons of water cascading down every second.
O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life.
Psalm 36:8-9
As they make music they will sing, “All my fountains are in you.”
Psalm 87:7
On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
John 7:37-38
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Psalm 23:5
I am writing this in the early weeks of the Covid-19 crisis. Everything around me is pulling back. Shrinking. Retreating. No more large gatherings of people. No more sporting events. No more crowds of people gathered together, except the crowds at the airports, where people are nervously scrambling to get home, to get out, to get away. My wife works at a surgery center where the administration is contemplating whether to close its doors. My daughter has just been sent home from work. The children are already home and quarantined for all practical purposes. Where can they go? Everything is shutting down.
But God is not shutting down. He is still a fountain of life. His love is still flowing…
Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.
Psalm 36:5
Do you see it? Do you feel it? Are you embracing it and finding comfort in His abundant provision? If so, give thanks and praise Him for He is always worthy!
If not, then stop and pray. Stop thinking about all the things that frighten you. Stop fretting about things you can’t control. Stop buying more toilet paper! It is not going to save you! Set your heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, and not on earthly things.
Where are you going to find life in this hour of need? Christ is your life! And your exercise of faith is to get your eyes on Him. There is no shortage of anything in heaven. Stop and put your mind in the heavenliness and put your empty cup into the ever-flowing fountain, until you too can say, “My cup overflows!” Your God is a fountain of peace and hope and joy. Don’t let this (or any crisis) rob you of what He has purchased for you. His death and resurrection was not an empty transaction. It was His way of pouring the blessings of heaven down upon needy and undeserving people.
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; And you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread, And your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good, And your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
Isaiah 55:1-2
Your God of overflowing provision is not a deceiver. He is not promising you something He cannot deliver. Come, in your emptiness, your fear, your need, your uncertainty, your doubt. Come and feast your wavering soul on Him, the fountain of life.