Depending on God: 7 Days to Recognizing Your Deep Need for HimSample

We Depend Entirely Upon God for Our Place

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters”. Theologians and scholars have debated what’s going on in this verse for centuries. We may not know every detail of the earth’s condition before God created life, but we know that these conditions aren’t conducive to life. (How’s that for weakness? We’re so weak that we have needs before we even exist!) In what follows, God brings about an environment in which life not only exists but can thrive as a testament to his glory. He speaks light into darkness, binds the waters, fashions the sky, brings forth dry land, calls forth vegetation, and orders celestial lights to rule the night and day. After the place is ready, God fills it with blessed living creatures.

The Lord provided the first humans with a particular place, a home. And what a place it is! A garden of gorgeous trees bearing good fruit, watered by a river that flowed down into the surrounding lands filled with gold and precious stones. But as lavish as this place is, there is something even better: God was there, walking with his people. Isn’t that incredible? God doesn’t just give us a place to live; he provides us with a place to live with him.

Life with God is neither a luxury nor a bonus. It’s a rock-bottom, non-negotiable need. God is life—“the Father has life in himself’. As we’ve seen, God doesn’t get life from anywhere. He is life—and he alone gives life. Apart from him, we have no life. To be banished from his presence is to die forever.

Life with God is a need, and it’s also a gift. Unless God gives us himself, we can’t have him. We didn’t earn life with God in the beginning. He gave it to us. We don’t earn it now. He comes down to us in free grace. We won’t deserve it in the end—it will be given to us without cost. Every grace from creation to new creation is nothing short of God living with us so that we might live in him.