It’s Too Big For Me!

I don’t know about you, but I have felt overwhelmed with the enormity of the need in the hurricane-ravaged part of our nation. As bad as the pictures reveal the situation to be, I know that the devastation is much worse than we can possibly grasp from pictures of any sort. I have felt a heaviness with this that is second only to what I felt after the terror attacks of September 11. As I tried to pray about it not long afterward, all that I could muster was, “Lord, it’s too big for me!”

The Lord gently reminded me that if anything isn’t too big for me in prayer, then I don’t need Him in it. Really, anything we pray for is too big for us – whether it’s for a cut on a child’s finger to be healed, a lost key to be found, prayer for protection while we sleep, or provision for all those who now have no homes in the Gulf Coast region! I don’t believe God sees the needs in order of big or small, as we do. Is it really any harder for God to provide miraculously for a physical or financial need for someone who has lost everything than for Him to draw a lost loved one to Himself in salvation? He doesn’t consider our prayers based on the degree of difficulty of providing the answer. We do. In Numbers 11:23 and Isaiah 50:2 He asks, “Is My arm too short?”

What must we do when we find ourselves in the midst of such overwhelming and enormous need? We want to pray, but feel absolutely powerless and clueless as to where to begin, because we are focused so much on what we see and hear in the natural. Our focus needs to be adjusted back on God to get His perspective on the situation, so we can once again see clearly, as He does.

2 Cor 4:18 NIV “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on
what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is
unseen is eternal.”

As David did so many times in the Psalms, we must remind ourselves of Who God is. Just the Numbers and Isaiah passages referred to above immediately wake me up, almost like a slap on the face, adjusting my perspective to remember that God is well able to do what is needed. It is because of Who He is that we have hope. It is because of Who He is that we can pray with authority, knowing that He will answer in ways beyond our imagining.

Really, the title of this nugget should be, “It’s All Too Big For Me.” Because I serve Almighty God, however, there is nothing that’s too big for Him! Luke 1:37 tells us that nothing is impossible with God. Indeed, it is all too big for me. But God is not calling on me to take care of it on my own. He’s only calling me to pray as He leads me, and trust Him to lead others to pray as He leads them. And He’s only calling me to do the natural things that He gives me to do, as He calls other to do what He gives them to do, as well. God is not asking any one of us to do it all, pray it all, or fix it all. He asks none of us to do anything because we are able in our own strength, but because He is able through us! All praise and glory to Him!

© Copyright 2005 Kay V. Stocking