Isaiah 43:11

“I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.”

Back when I was in middle school, I played on a basketball team organized by a community center in our neighborhood. I was never really any good at basketball; I struggled just to be average. I joined because some of my friends were on the team. Our starting team had played together for a few years and they were good. They knew each other’s tendencies and strengths and could anticipate each other’s moves. So, I spent most of my time on the bench (surprise, surprise. 😊)

But as in all games, the starting team would eventually need to rest. Because I was relatively tall, I would substitute for my friend who played forward. Whenever I would come into the game, one of the parents who was a regular at our games, would yell, “Go ahead Super Sub; you got this!” The “Super” in front of the “Sub” gave me more confidence as I ran out on the court; at times too much confidence.

In one game, I actually scored a couple of times and got a few rebounds. I started thinking, “You know, this isn’t too bad. I think I’ll show them what I got.” The next time down the court, instead of passing the ball, I decide to show off my hook shot from the free throw line…a shot I had never practiced. Mistake…big mistake. The ball sailed under the backboard and landed out of bounds. My teammates just looked at me thinking the same thought, “What in the world was that?” Even members of the other team looked puzzled. Obviously I was over confident and no real substitute.

When life runs smoothly for a while, it’s easy for us to begin to develop more confidence in our own abilities. A few victories in life nudges us to depend on our own resources and others. Sometimes the words of others push us further to self-suficiency without God. We form a habit of approaching each day and every situations with the attitude of, “I got this. I’ll show them what I got.”

But when difficulties come, we often discover that our abilities “don’t even hit the backboard”. We come face to face with our limitations. The more difficult the situation (layoffs, kids in trouble, legal issues, downturn in business, death of family member, divorce, cancer diagnosis, etc.), the more our efforts resemble trying to make a goal from the other end of the basketball court — blindfolded. That’s when we realize that we are no substitute for the real Savior.

In the passage above, the word “savior” comes from a word that means:

to save, deliver, rescue, bring to safety; to be open, wide, free, to make whole

God’s master plan was to provide the one way for us to have direct followship with, and reliance on Him, through Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5). To reject Jesus, Who is the exact image of God Himself (Hebrews 1:1-4), is really a “slap in the face” towards God.

Are you becoming too self-reliant in your ability to “save” yourself? Do you depend on others to “make you whole” or “bring you to safety”? Have you become your own “savior” in different areas of your life?

The prophet Jeremiah makes it clear the path for us to follow (Jeremiah 17:5-8):

Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.  He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”