Jesus is looking for people just like you. He sees all your greatness in him – even if you feel like your spiritual résumé is unimpressive. Through Christ, you can do the impossible!
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a great story about faith.
You may think this is odd for me to say, but my heart breaks a little when I read a letter from someone who says, “Oh, Joni, I wish my faith were like yours. You have such great faith.” You know, it hurts a little to read things like that because, well, it’s as though she’s putting me on a pedestal, far removed from what normal Christian life is like for most people. But oh, how I wish they knew. I wish this woman understood that every single morning – and I’m not exaggerating – every morning I got to go to God in such desperate need. “I can’t do quadriplegia anymore,” I’ll say to the Lord. Or the times when people ask how they can pray for me? I’ll most often answer, “Would you please pray that my faith not fail?” Because I cannot do life without the Lord; I really, really, really can’t! It’s just too hard, it’s too overwhelming. Now, does confessing my great need make me a woman of great faith? Well, I guess it all depends on what I do next. What do I do when I sense that my faith is failing? What do I do with my desperate need? And there is only one option, only one answer. You got to say to the Lord, “I can’t do quadriplegia anymore, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Is that great faith? Does that make me special or unusual or extraordinary? It shouldn’t. Really, I should not be the exception. Because it’s what normal Christian life should look like.
Hudson Taylor, the missionary to China, once said that “God is not looking for men of great faith, he is looking for common men to trust his great faithfulness.” And oh my goodness, that’s so true. As believers in Jesus, there’s nothing “great” about us. We have died to ourselves. All we are, is full of need and emptiness. We are hollow vessels that require constant filling. A filling of the spirit of Jesus.
But I should add here though, that Jesus did make a reference once to someone he said whose faith was great. In Luke 7, a Roman centurion wanted Jesus to heal his servant. But he felt unworthy for Jesus to even come under his roof. But then, when Jesus heard it, he was amazed and he turned to the crowd and said, “‘…I have not found such great faith even in Israel.’” My friend Jon Bloom defines that scene this way. He says, “This man, this Centurion, whose faith made Jesus marvel was not a disciple, he did no miracles, planted no churches, had no degree, no religious title. His spiritual résumé was unimpressive. The man with the greatest faith in Israel was a Centurion who simply knew who Jesus was, what he was able to do, he humbly asked him, and trusted that he would receive what he needed. He really believed in Jesus. And that is still the faith that makes Jesus marvel.”
And you know, friend, Jesus is still looking for common people to trust his great faithfulness. Jesus is still looking for people who will humble themselves to confess their desperate need. He’s still looking for believers who recognize their emptiness and know that they need filling, who know that their faith needs divine help. Jesus is still looking for people like you and me who know they are not great, but see all greatness in their Savior, Jesus Christ. For without him, we can do absolutely nothing. But with him? We can do the impossible. Like waking up tomorrow morning paralyzed and moving into an impossibly hard day and saying, “I can do all things, even this hard thing, through Christ who strengthens me.”
© Joni and Friends