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Genesis 11:4 NLT

Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world.”

Learning the nature of my humanity has taken many years. I remember the confidence that flowed through my veins from a young age. A confidence that was on reflection as much arrogance as it was any feeling of self-reliance. There was at its heart a desire for personal recognition. I sought recognition and ‘I’ wanted to be at the centre of my own world.

A young man with an ego seeking to find voice and expression most certainly relished the opportunities working for a high-profile youth ministry gave me in running gospel concerts at prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, and administrating the dream that became a major Christian festival. Yet, I wanted to be on the platform. I also came to believe that my endeavours, joined to others and then effectively funded, would certainly bring in God’s kingdom. I expected to be blessed and thanked by God for my vision, sacrifice and hard work.

Like the architects of the dream of Babel, I spoke out my intention and paused just briefly for prayer; a prayer informing God what he might bless. Little wonder on that journey God needed to confront me in an attempt to open my eyes to the reality that God calls the tune and I sing it and dance to it. Stripping back my youthful confidence I found that self-reliance, while convenient and comforting, blinded me to the will and way of God. In journeying alongside Katey’s MS, I both lost and found myself, my true self.

It took what seemed forever for my egoistic strength to drain away. And when it had, I felt an empty shell of a man. I looked for God, yet found nothing but a desert of apparent desertion and desolation. I was lost once more and in desperate need of a saviour. So began a search of my new barren home, a land in which I depended upon an unseen God to sustain me. I learned to live all over again.

QUESTION: Is your life built upon your own confidence in your ability, or are you overwhelmed by the realities of life?

PRAYER: Sovereign Lord, I need you, depend on you and cannot live without you.