Sometimes we just need God. Yes, in a sense we need His gifts as well – His wisdom, His strength, His guidance, His love. But really, we just need Him.

At such times, words are just words. “Truth” is abstract, cumbersome, and irrelevant. Even Scripture seems a wearisome and indirect way of meeting our need for that moment, which is for God to just be there. Exhaustion has left us incapable of doing anything but crying out for His nearness.

Such experiences can result from a particular problem that has troubled and drained us. But often they come from vague accumulations of fatigue, uncertainty, and stress.

During these times, we learn to appreciate God’s greatest gift. This gift is not one of His blessings. It’s not a “something” He sends to us, no matter how precious. His greatest gift is Himself, given to us personally. His most profound comfort is the assurance that He is, and He is here for us, and He is purely love.

Through the sacrament of Communion, we physically remember that “redemption” and “forgiveness” are not the ultimate gifts of His plan of salvation. He Himself is the Gift. The wine is His blood. The bread is His body. The celebration, a remembrance of Him. We feed on Him, the One who gave everything – His blood, His sweat, His pain, agony, humiliation, death, and life. The Heir of all things gave all He had and all He was, not only for us, but to us as well. We feed on Him, and His very being becomes the substance and strength of our lives.

As we reach to Him from these lowest and blackest regions, we can do so with the solid confidence that He is ours and He is present. We can know that when we are incapable of doing anything else, just needing Him pleases Him. Trusting Him is the highest praise He asks. And even in the depths, we can taste the greatest joy that life here or hereafter will ever offer: the joy of loving Him, simply and personally.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Jesus, I Need Your Spirit
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics