I Need You More

The Lord said to Abram:
Leave your country, your family, and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you.”          Genesis 12:1 (CEV)

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.      Matthew 4:1 (NLT)

Some seasons in my life are just hard. Oh, I can keep the truth that I will come out stronger on the other side for the path that I have come through. I know that is true because God has proven that to me in previous seasons. But when I am in the season and walking that path, it is just hard.

This past weekend in my Sunday School class we discussed Hebrews 11 which is a passage about faith and those who have gone before us and shared their stories. Now Hebrews 11 takes what I call a “cheerleader attitude” about those stories. A cheerleader will continue to yell “Yea, Team!” even when the team is down 55-0 with two minutes left to play. The writer of this chapter in Hebrews glosses the stories with a bit more faith than the participants actually had.

Abram, or Abraham as he became known, did leave and go to the land God showed him but his life journey with God was not without lies, doubts, and hard seasons. Abraham is not part of God’s inspired Word because of his perfection but because of his willingness to try and rely on God to get him through when he was too weak to do it. The same can be said about Moses, David, Esther, Ruth, all the disciples, Mary and Joseph, and Paul.

It is only Jesus who can be held as a perfect example of a walk through this life. From His birth in a barn, escape to Egypt, temptation trial in the desert, attempts to throw Him off cliffs (Luke 4:28-30), and final betrayal by His own people, Jesus stayed the course He was given. But wait …

There is that passage in Luke 22. Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane. He is praying. Is He praising and thanking the Father for all that He has come through? I don’t know by reading Luke 22:39-46 everything that was in Jesus’ prayers that night but I am told that He asked the Father to change His mind and make this season easier. Jesus did not want to continue to walk to Calvary. It was so hard that He began to sweat blood!

Today or this week or this month or the foreseeable future may be hard but Jesus is with me and He knows about hard. He knows how much a ministering angel can help me as I pray. He knows how to help me put one more foot in front of the other in faith when I am climbing a steep hill. He knows when to give me a peek at the victory of Sunday when I am standing in the darkness of Friday. When I need Jesus – He is here.

I Need You More written and sung by Lindell Cooley