Every Second

Busy cleaning the house and taking down the remnants of Christmas stockings and mistletoe hangings, we made the bold transition from listening to Christmas music for the past two, let’s be honest, three months, to worship music. George was sitting at the counter while “Lord I Need You,” by Matt Maher was playing in the background. In George’s nonchalant way, whispers, “More like every second.” I asked him to repeat what he said. He simply replied, “we do not need God every hour, it’s more like every second…..”

The song came out in 2013 with the chorus stating , “Lord I need you, Oh, I need You. Every hour, I need You. My one defense, my righteousness, Oh God, how I need You.” After George voiced his lyrical opinion, I just stood in thought. He is exactly right. Oh, how I tend to live needing God, maybe every hour, week, month. How often do I actually feel like I NEED God and is it every second?

I ran to my bedroom and started writing this thought down. Oh how we tend to rely on our own strengths, ideas, work, abilities…the list goes on. 2020 was a rough one, and as I look back, I realize that through pain and troubled times, my reliance was more in the every hour category and not the every second. When this song first came out, I remember not liking it at all. I thought to myself, “can we be anymore needy and annoying of God’s precious time?” As God keeps refining my heart and strengthening my weakness, I realize how completely and entirely wrong I was. God asks us everyday to rely fully on Him. How much more joy would consume my soul, if I gave everything to Him, even my dependance.

I love hearing stories from my sister, Abby, about her trips to the jungle and her experiences with the refugee camps. She witnessed children sleeping in huts on thin mats who watched their parents murdered before their eyes. No one can honestly fathom what they have seen and been through, but Abby described them full of joy. They awoke before sunrise to worship God who had saved them from the pit of hell. They rejoiced in His goodness and depended on Him for their food, clothing, safety, love and delight. We live in a culture, different from the jungle, and it makes it hard to rely on Him in this way. I may not wake up praying that breakfast is provided, but in turn pray that my family feels love, that my kids actually learn something from homeschool, that my husband’s anxieties of his job grow dim, that my unbelieving friends find Jesus, that the bills are payed and so it goes….

As we celebrate the New Year, with many new hopes of better things to come, I am going to start my year laying my own ways and ideas down. In the morning when I rise to the time the sun goes down, I want to need him, desperately, like those beautiful children in the jungle. As my heart takes this posture, I am graciously expectant of a year full of joy, no matter the inequities of the daily life. This year, I want to choose every second of the every hour.

Happy New Year Friends!

Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but GOD is the strength of my heart and my PORTION FOREVER. Psalm 73:23-26