Philippians 3: 10-14; Psalm 86:11

¹⁰that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, ¹¹if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

The price of knowing God more does not come cheap. Often God uses unusual circumstances wrapped in pain, lack, hardship, loss, etc. to teach us more about Himself; and in the process we also learn more about ourselves.

As human beings, most times our stability comes from certain earthly possessions, such as, our finances, friends, jobs, careers, education, wealth, connections, etc; we place our hopes and trust on these things (without realizing it), and become very dependent on them. Well, God will not share His glory with another; and moreover He calls us into a deeper relationship with Him; the type that can be birth through dependency on HIM.

Dependency on God is not an easy task; in fact, to put it in a lay man’s words – it’s not for the faint hearted! Complete dependence on God means you have no trust in these earthly possessions. There is no middle line, it’s either you are trusting God 100% or not!

The tricky part is that we are deceived into believing we are trusting God, until God begins to uncover us and the reality of our so called faith is unveiled. How does God do this? He begins to take away our stabilities (i.e. the things that make us stable, comfortable, and confident); the things we have placed our hopes in. It could be the loss of our job, financial crises, end of a relationship, etc.

Then our world will seemingly come crashing down in the face of these challenges. We begin to quaver in fear, and our emotions take a downward plunge, racing faster than we can catch up. At that time, the scales drop off our eyes as we begin to realize our faith/trust had not been in God, but in these things that bring us stability in life.

Then we feel the beckoning hand of Jesus, calling us into a deeper relationship with HIM. If we yield to Him, He leads us into a journey of dependency on Him. He teaches us what true faith looks like, and what real trust means. As He meets our every need, He begins to unveil Himself in ways we never knew! The deeper we trust, the more we learn of HIM – His personality, His love, His character, His compassion, His Power, His abilities, etc.

The beauty of knowing God is the willingness to step out of our comfort zone a little bit more each time; to discover other aspects of Him we never knew before. Even though our faith is severely put to test each time; the sacredness of this new found love and relationship is real, compelling, and sweet!

And as we continue to journey with Him, we learn that He is our sufficiency; sufficient for every need! We realize He is more than a match for any situation; and that true stability comes from having Christ –He is the essence of life itself. The one and only God that cannot fail!

Finally, we reach that place in our journey where nothing else matters, but HIM! At that point we say with Peter “let us make three tents here”, as our heart overflows with the joy of finding Him, and the thrill of it all!