God doesn't need us...

Most of my inspiration and deeper thoughts comes from music. There are certain songs out there that make me think a little deeper on subjects that I might have just passed over, and having a kid kind of adds to that thinking. There are times when Cohen will do something or act a certain way and all of a sudden I’m thinking about the implications or motivations surrounding what I am doing or planning. Recently both a song and the antics my little boy brought something to light in my mind. It’s amazing how God can use the things he surrounds us with to give us an even deeper look into who He is.


The song I mentioned above is “Two weeks in Africa” by Caedmon’s Call (one of my absolute favorite bands). The song is a fantastic song about spending time in Africa on missions and the impact it has on both the person going out on the mission trip and the people that are being helped. There was always one line that I loved, and that I thought I understood, in the song about God’s need for us in missions. The line says “We put the walls up, but Jesus keeps them standing. He doesn’t need us but He lets us put our hands in. So we can see His love is bigger than you and me.” Great lyrics and great meaning, but it never really sunk in until Cohen and I set out to put together his swing-set (my wife also did a lot of the actual work).

Now don’t get me wrong, I love working with my son and having him help out on projects, but how much can a two year old do to build a swing-set? He can’t really do anything “valuable” as far as the swing-set is concerned. In fact, he will most likely slow me down and make the job more difficult. But, that doesn’t keep him from helping and me from letting him help. While I’m following directions and putting things together, he’s walking around with my rubber mallet hammering everything in sight (much to the chagrin of my two dogs and the detriment of any passing bug). It all came to a head when I turned around and saw Cohen wandering through the yard carrying the last few lock washers (and yes they only send you the exact number required) and dropping them in random places. After a 20-30 minute crawling search, we found all of the washers. That’s headache I don’t need when I’m putting together a large project in the blazing heat, but you know what, I wouldn’t change anything. Having Cohen beside me made me happy. Even though it took longer and was twice as frustrating as usual, it was totally worth it. And I know he’s probably too little to completely understand, but he enjoyed himself because he was able to “help” me build the swing-set. As he gets older he will start to appreciate things more whenever he sees the work that’s required. It may still take longer to have him involved, but both of us get satisfaction in the end.

Isn’t that how God works with us? Just like the song says, “We put the walls up, but Jesus keeps them standing…” God has designed this world and designed all the laws of nature to coincide with it. You can give me a long list of equations and theorems describing how the wood fibers hold the nail in place due to the friction between the two substances (blah, blah, blah). I know most of the equations, in fact I scraped by in college by being able to regurgitate them back out onto a piece of paper. The fact is, if you are a Christian you understand that God’s the one that made that happen. He designed it just that way, so truly we may stand the wall up, but the forces of nature (God’s forces) keep them there. We pat ourselves on the back and say “Good job. We really did a great job building …”, but we just held stuff up. Cohen could look back and say, “Wow I did a great job walking around with those washers. They ended up right where they were supposed to go.” But, I know that they ended up there because I put them there. They held together because I tightened them (and yes like I said before, they held together because ultimately God held them there). It would be absurd for Cohen to stand up and pound his chest and tell everyone that he built that swing-set, but we do that with projects and with missions all the time. We show what a great job the “church” has done building this, or organizing that, and all too often we forget that God really did it.

Right after I set out to write this, Stephen Hawking came out with his most recent outrageous claim that the world and universe were formed with no input from God, and that there is really no reason to even assume God exists. OK, just to be clear, I really disagree with Mr. Hawking here. He is a brilliant scientist and one of the most brilliant human beings ever, but there it is, he’s a human. A human next to God is even more ridiculous of a comparison than Cohen helping me build something. A two year old cannot be expected to understand things the way a grown adult does. Even the most brilliant 2 year old will still fall woefully short. (As a disclaimer, I know that there are prodigies out there, but those prodigies grow up and become even smarter. This example is using two regular everyday people like my son and me.) Mr. Hawking looks at what’s around him, decides how it should go and then tells God that He doesn’t exist because we have now figured it out. It would be much the same as my son looking at the pieces of the swing-set that were laid out before him and telling me that he doesn’t need my input or the instructions. Now he will be able to make something from the pile of parts, but I promise you it will not be the swing-set. In fact, it most likely will not resemble any swing-set. That’s what happens when we think we know best, we put all the parts together and then say that we have it figured out. How crazy would it be for him to turn around and tell me that he was able to do this all by himself and that it turned out just fine? I would have to tell him to have fun trying to swing and slide on what could best be described as a pile of wood. The problem is that we build something that ends up suiting only what we originally thought it should look like. Whenever God is involved, it turns out looking like the plan, and is usually much greater than we could have imagined.

But, there is also a second part to the song that I mentioned. “He doesn’t need us but He lets us put our hands in. So we can see His love is bigger than you and me.” Now for the really big picture, GOD DOESN’T “NEED” US TO EVEN PUT THE WALLS UP. In fact, most of the time we just get in the way and drop his lock-washers all over the mission field. Just like how I didn’t need Cohen to help me, God can do all this without us. But, He’s a loving Father who wants to spend time with us and let us do things to hopefully catch a glimpse of how big He really is. If we truly serve a God that will make the rocks cry out if we don’t (Luke 19:40), how simple would it be for him to construct buildings and organize events using the materials he created? Now I’m definitely not saying that we just sit back and don’t do anything. It’s quite the opposite. God may not need us to do it, but He certainly wants us to help. Just like I want my son to help me whenever I am doing something, God wants us to be right there. I would be hurt if my son said that he didn’t feel like helping me or that it was too much trouble, and then he went off to do his own thing.

Jon Acuff (AKA prodigaljon) wrote a blog about building benches (stuffchristianslike.net/2010/08/building-benches-instead-of-frisbees/). To summarize, he talks about doing the work for God that you have been called to and not just doing the work to do it. He also references Matthew 11:28-30 (“My burden is light…” verse) to talk about when we are doing what God has called us to do, it’s easy to do it, and please don’t misunderstand (just like a lot of commenters on Jon’s blog), I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s just easier than trying to force something you aren’t intended to do. If Cohen had taken off and decided that he was going to build a set of monkey bars instead of helping me build the swing-set, he would have had a tough time. I didn’t want him working on the monkey bars, and he would have taken the full weight on his shoulders. Believe me, even though he is a tough little guy, he couldn’t have carried the weight. Sure he was sweating and tired by the time the swing-set was done, but it was much easier than setting out on his own project.

All of this is why God doesn’t need us to help Him. How great of a gift is it when we can approach each project with the mindset that God is allowing us to help Him? That really changes my outlook when I can see that I am being allowed to help instead of thinking that I have to help. And while I generally hate to try and draw a comparison between God and myself, the Father to son relationship is a perfect picture of it. If an imperfect human like me enjoys spending time with his son, how much more does God enjoy spending time with us? I firmly believe He will gladly crawl around searching for the washers we drop just to have us spend the time helping Him with projects He can easily accomplish on His own.

So as the title says, God doesn't need us, but He does want us.