Just what does God ask of you? Everything. While that may seem like too much, God also gives you the power to do everything that he asks of you.
Hi, this is Joni Eareckson Tada asking, just what does God ask of you?
It’s like this, there you are facing overwhelming odds, right? Some do-or-die challenge, and you’re already juggling one set of problems and now this other headache and this other disappointment has been thrown into the mix and it’s got you thinking: “Now, God, come on, what do you expect from me? Blood? I mean, none of my other friends seem to be faced with such faith-challenging tests. And I’m no martyr, no Charles Wesley. Why are you doing this? Don’t you think you’re asking too much of me?” I know you’ve thought about that, and I have, too. We have all toyed with the idea that maybe, just maybe, God might be requiring too much from us.
Well, you might be wondering: exactly what does God ask of you? And the writer of Deuteronomy has an answer—and what an answer it is, especially for me today, not only with this quadriplegia, but extra aches and pains, oh my goodness, yikes! Deuteronomy 10:12-13 says, “What does the Lord your God ask of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?”
Well, there you go; that sums it up neatly. I mean, what does God ask of you and me? Only to fear Him, love Him, serve Him, obey Him—and to do it with all our heart and soul. Friend, in short, all God is asking of us is everything! I want you to know that when I first became a spinal cord injured quadriplegic as a result of that diving accident many years ago, back then there were times when I felt God was asking way too much of me. To trust and obey Him in the middle of severe paralysis and what I used to consider to be a life sentence in a wheelchair. Oh, my goodness, good grief! “Come on, God, I’m only a teenager; I’m just a kid—what do I know of faith-strengthening trials? I’m a brand-new Christian, at that. Can’t you give me something a little more manageable, a little more ‘doable,’ than a broken neck and a life of paralysis?” As far as I could see, God was asking way too much of me, a kid new to the Christian faith.
Well, that martyr complex, I have since come to realize, was fostered by—now listen closely to this—by concentrating too much on what God was asking of me and not enough on what God had given me. So, if you are tempted, like I was, to think that “everything” sounds like too much for God to require of you, stop a minute and think about what God has given you. How much has He held back? Anything? No, of course not. In fact, He gave more than everything—He gave His own life, He gave His only Son, like Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
So, for all those times—those many times—when you feel that God expects too much of you, please remember that He has promised you even more than His own Son. He has promised you power through the Spirit, power that’ll help you do all that He requires of you, power that will strengthen your weak knees and faint heart so that you can say with the apostle, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” That’s the way I see it. More than five decades in this wheelchair plus cancer plus chronic pain, no way is God asking too much of me. Hey, I’d like to hear from you on this topic; drop by my radio page today at joniradio.org and tell me how the Holy Spirit has given you power to do all things through Jesus, because all God asks from you is everything and all He offers you is the power to do it.
© Joni and Friends