We sing it with our eyes closed and our hands raised: "You're all I need. You're all I want." Beautiful. Moving. Not quite true. I've never had a moment when God was all I wanted. Some afternoons I wanted a nap. Some evenings I wanted pizza, without my tummy being bloated. And I can't honestly say God is all I need while I'm breathing oxygen, drinking water, and eating lunch. If God were all I needed, He wouldn't have bothered making lungs. Call it romantic truth: things that aren't factual but feel true. They sound deeply spiritual, but they don't survive an honest conversation. Look at Genesis. Adam has a perfect garden, a meaningful job (naming the animals, which must have been a long afternoon with his notebook filled with words), and unbroken fellowship with God. Then God Himself says, "It is not good for the man to be alone." Notice who said it. Adam didn't file a complaint. God did. He looked at a man walking in daily communion with Him and said, in effect, "I made you for Me, and I made you for each other." Now fast-forward to Elijah. He's just won a showdown with the prophets of Baal, and then he collapses under a broom tree, exhausted and ready to quit. What does God prescribe? Not a sermon. Not a ten-point self-improving plan. An angel shows up, taps him on the shoulder, and says, in effect, "Get up and eat." Then Elijah goes back to sleep. Then another meal. The great prophet's next step of faith was a nap and a snack. That's not a gap in God's sufficiency. It's His design. He is enough to sustain us, but He never said He was the only gift in the room. He gave us people, bread, and Sabbath rest, and He called it good. I suspect this is why many people walk away from faith. They hear clichés that don't match real life, and an honest person says, "That can't be true." They're right. But the truth is better than the cliché: God is the source of everything we need, including the people and the pizza. So tell the truth in your prayers. Admit you're tired. Thank Him for oxygen and H2O. And text/call the person you've been avoiding, because that's part of the plan too.

— Pastor Ovid Radulescu