In honor of July 4th and our country's current division, I wanted to share some hope with you all...
I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m on an emotional roller coaster. These times are so bizarre, so full of angst. It feels like laughter can turn to tears at the flip of a switch.
If you feel like I do, take heart in knowing that you're not alone. And if you are like me, you may feel frustrated with yourself too.
When fear plagues and misery overwhelms, you may blame yourself. You may be annoyed at your irritability. You may bash your snarky comments, or despise your unruly responses. You may beat yourself up over your tears because you cannot fathom why they're falling.
But in all of this, in all of the stress and struggle and confusion and pain, we need to love ourselves. As I have been traversing this year, one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is this: we need to have compassion on ourselves!
The last few years have been hard, unlike anything we've experienced before. When taking into account these crazy circumstances, it’s no wonder we may feel a bit crazy ourselves!
So why are we beating ourselves up for not acting “normal” when our world has become abnormal? Instead of expecting ourselves to take these challenges in stride, acting like robots without any emotions at all, what if we just took it one day at a time?
What if, rather than berating ourselves for being weary, we praised God for the strength to continue on?
As God reminds us in 2 Corinthians, “My grace is enough for you, for My power is made perfect in [your] weakness” (12:9). When we are weak, then He strengthens us.
When we are sick of work, He gives us the strength to make it through the endless supply of meetings and emails. When our family members are driving us crazy, God helps us patiently power through the day. When going to the grocery store seems too stressful to bear, He gives us the energy to brave the world. When we miss our loved ones so much that it hurts, God comforts us when others can’t.
And when we feel our hope dwindling and the weariness settling in, He reminds us of His sovereign provision and builds our hope in Him.
We do not need to be strong, because God already is. He offers us His almighty strength, and all we have to do is receive it.
So if you’re like me, you may be riding an emotional roller coaster. You may be moody and tired and weary, and you may not even understand why. You may have times of feeling weak and helpless and hopeless; but who ever said we had to be strong? Who said we were the ones that shouldered the world?
There is a God, and we are not Him. God is God, we are not.
He is the all-powerful One. He is the potter and we are the clay (Isaiah 64:8). We are the ones that are made from dust (Genesis 2:7). Dust is not strong; in fact, dust is practically the polar opposite of strength. We are dust, we are weak. But the One who made us, He is strong.
In His great mercy, our Abba, our Daddy, has given us the strength to get through these trialing times, because He has given us Himself. And He is all the strength that we need.
Martin Luther King Jr. says it this way: “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward."
A lot of us may be crawling right now. But with our hands and knees on the floor,
there we find ultimate surrender to the God Who flies.
We may be weak, but our God has given us His strength. And as the second part of 2 Corinthians 12:9 testifies, because of God’s strength, we can “boast all the more gladly about [our] weaknesses."
In our weaknesses, God’s divine strength is revealed, and He is glorified.
The weak ones showcase the Strong One.
I don’t know about you, but I say let the trials come, then. Let the roller coaster hasten and confuse. Let us be worn down to a crawl. Because when we are weak, that’s when our Heavenly Father soars.
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