It is easy to confuse efficiency and self-sufficiency. All of us want to be efficient, but efficient people easily tend to become self-sufficient. Whenever we attain efficiency we feel competent for our job, we know we are masters of it, and soon permit that feeling to spread till it covers the whole of life. We begin to believe we can manage life as easily as we can manage our job. That kind of self-sufficiency is as destructive of faith as it is of humility. None of us is equal to the demands of life single-handed. We may succeed for a time. We may even boast about our mastery of life for a time, but sooner or later we meet the impossible. We are faced with a situation or an experience where life lays its demands before us, and we are unable to meet them. We cannot face life successfully in our own strength or by our own wisdom. We need a higher wisdom and a greater strength. These we only find in God. When we have found faith in God we are equipped to meet all the chances and changes that life can bring. The Christian is and out to be efficient, but not self-sufficient. Our sufficiency is of God. Through Christ we become more than conquerors. We are reminded from Scripture that “in the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16 verse 33). Therein lies our sufficiency.
John.
