As I was driving to church on Sunday morning, I began to wonder if I was trusting God as I ought to have been. We’ve been studying through 1 Thessalonians and considering persecution and suffering a lot. I can see how I would be driven to trust God in hard circumstances, but over the last few days I’ve been thinking about whether or not I’ve been pridefully trusting in myself and my own strength in the mundane. It is hard to be proud in persecution and affliction. As Thomas Watson said, “When God lays men upon their backs, then they look up to heaven.” Being put in place of need awakens us to an awareness of our need, and so we express our need to God. Persecution and affliction often naturally bring humility.

The reality is that we need God in and on the days that are mundane – the days which stand before us and tempt us to approach them in our own pride and strength. We need to wake up with a sense of need. I tend to wake up with need on my mind. I wake up thinking, “I need to do this or that, and I need to do it now.” But that’s not really the kind of need on my mind that I ought to wake up with. I ought to wake up with a sense of need of Christ and his grace for that day. Because I need him in the mundane. I need him to give me life and breath. I need him to give me wisdom and love. I need him to give me energy and patience. I need him to give me holiness and righteousness. Without him I have none of these things. I need him.

There is not a turnkey solution to conquering my pride in the mundane, and there is not one for yours either. You and I both ought to begin each day by turning our minds away from (at least momentarily) what we “need to get done” to what God has done for us in Christ to meet our need, and what he continues to do for us through his Spirit to supply our need. The truth is I need him, and so do you. But here is the really amazing thing – he continues to deal gently and graciously with us when we live as though we don’t need him, when we live as though we can master the mundane all on our own. Even then he continues to supply all of our needs according to his riches in glory. He is a God who has no needs, but meets ours out of the abundance of his loving kindness. Each day we ought to feel our need of him, regardless of whether or not it is mundane. I pray that we do.