How Depending on God Is Actually the Most Powerful Thing You Can Do

I don’t know about you but, occasionally, God has to deal with me to bring me to a new level of dependence on Him.

You know, we can do great things in life, but a truly humble person doesn’t wake up in the morning without thinking, I need You, God. If You don’t help me today, I’m going to make a fool out of myself. We need His leadership to succeed. And we can’t grow in humility until we can see our own pride and confront it.

So what does pride look like? Often, it shows up in the little things―the way we treat people every day:

Like interrupting others when they’re talking…giving our opinion when nobody’s asking for it…holding a grudge instead of saying, “I’m sorry”…criticizing people who can’t do things as quickly or as well as we can…not adapting to others around us…

A prideful person isn’t a good example of God’s love, but there is hope for all of us to become more humble.

We Don’t Have to Stay Where We Started

When I first started leading a Bible study, I still had a lot to learn. I’d wear short shorts and smoke cigarettes while I was teaching the Word. Sometimes you could hardly see the people because of the smoke! Beyond that, I had an issue with pride. I would actually listen to other preachers’ sermons and think: I can do better than that!

You may be wondering why anyone in their right mind would have gone to that study. I think the reason people showed up was simply because it was part of God’s plan. He gave me a gift for communication, but that wasn’t enough. If I wanted to have a worldwide ministry, I needed to develop the kind of godly character that would keep me in a position of leadership.

Obviously, I’m not still preaching in short shorts and blowing smoke at people when I teach. But I had to start somewhere. We all do.