Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us and not we ourselves.

Psalm 100:3

 

 

My ancestors came to America in 1639. For dozens of generations they made their living making shoes and boots. My great great great-grandfather Ezra was the first man to manufacture leather shoe strings here. In those days you made your boots and you pulled yourself by your own bootstraps, literally as well as figuratively.

 

Here in the western world we take pride in being ‘self-made’ people. Independence and self-sustainability are closely held values. Especially in the last 60 years, we have come to view ourselves more and more as the answer to our own problems. “The answer is within you,” we are told. The self-help section of the bookstore is replete with volumes on how we can fix whatever ails us.

 

It’s true that God has endowed us with miraculous brains capable of far more than we imagine. He was bestowed upon us the gift of willpower to choose a new direction and carve a new path for ourselves and our families. We are not slaves to our heritage. Chains of bondage and abuse can be broken in a single generation that has the will to break them.

 

But given all that ability, do we really have this all-powerful ‘genie’ within us? Well, yes and no.  Yes, we have many abilities. But no, we never have discovered the way to the end of our sorrows in our own power.

 

But ordinary people loved by an extraordinary God find power greater than themselves. History is filled with persons who were unlikely candidates for success. The bible especially emphasizes this. True to His Word, God doesn’t just call those equipped to be successful; He God equips those He calls. He wants us to be victors over trials, overcomers, freed from the bonds that otherwise would enslave us.

 

But we are like sheep with a strong tendency to stray from the fold, each of us to their own way. We easily get lost and put ourselves into dangerous fields by our own wrong thinking and self-seeking behaviors.

 

I know two things:

1. There is a God.

2. I’m not him.

 

We start to discover the equipping power that God wants to give us by acknowledging that it is God who made us, not we ourselves. When we acknowledge that we are His sheep and belong in His pasture, we don’t rely on our own distraught ways.  All throughout scripture we are reminded, “Remember I am the Lord your God.” (It is He who has made us and not we ourselves.)  When we remember our true identity, a child of God, one of his beloved sheep, we’ll be glad to stay under His protective watch.

 

In all your daily activities, your plans, your fears, and your ambitions, know that the Lord is God. It is He that made us and not we ourselves.