Feeling Useless?

Sometimes I feel so useless. Is this relative to the strong work ethic of my up-bringing? My dad seldom got on my case for being idle, but he did say much about the neighbors who were ‘lazy’ or unproductive. I’ve felt that if I wasn’t doing something useful, then I was useless.

However, God has changed my thinking, which is part of being a Christian. (See Romans 12:2) Feeling useless is akin to helplessness, to being needy. Those feelings should lead me to greater dependence on the Lord. Relying on myself will never produce a sense of usefulness in the same way that relying on God does. Doing things that I plan and implement in my own strength is useless compared to doing the will of God according to His plan and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even Jesus Christ needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit . . .

So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (Acts 10:34–43)

The phrase that instructs me is in italics: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

A careful reading of the Gospels shows that this was true for all that Jesus did. He was fully human and fully God, fully exemplified what it means to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit by laying aside His power as God and living like one of us . . .

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5–8)

Feeling useless can be a pride thing, a desire to be important or valuable, but it can also be the threshold to humility, to realizing that I am nothing on my own and I need God’s strength. If Jesus Christ did all that He did in the power of the Holy Spirit, how could I suppose I’m able to do anything in my own power? Feeling unable should be the norm and feeling useless needs to point me in that direction. As Tozer says, some Christians accomplish very little for God — we need to be filled with His Spirit to be busily and fruitfully doing His will.

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Jesus, today I feel ‘useless’ because of my health issues, but You reminded me yesterday afternoon that it is in weakness that Your strength is perfected. May this sense of being unable cause me to rely on You more and more. I know that with Your grace and power, I can do whatever You want me to do — and that is enough.