By Haley Waters
I don't know about you, but I am a pretty busy gal. At this point, I just keep adding more and more onto my plate, and I'm not even phased by the last-minute, crazed rush of my everyday life anymore. Which I should be, I know and which I am working on so if you're that way too, stop it! It's not good.
So you know those body builders that get super-muscular and enter competitions and wear the small clothes? Do you ever think: Wow, when are they going to be done? I imagine it's kind of like an addiction, always reaching for that next goal (whatever it is for a body builder, I wouldn't know). But I wonder if they ever think: Ok, I'm too strong, I should stop.
Well, like the body builder who can't fit through average doorways anymore, I too can get too strong. Except my strength doesn't make my clothes fit awkwardly or cause my biceps to move on their own. My strength is more of a "I am super-busy woman: hear me yawn in exhaustion." But instead of telling myself I'm too strong and that I need to slow down, that I need to organize, God has to tell me. You would think with the the amount of times He has told me by now that I would catch on and figure it out myself. But alas, I have not mastered that yet, therefore my heavenly Father is constantly, gently reminding me:
"You are too strong."
Awhile ago I read a Scripture I had read multiple times before but this time it came alive in a different way. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says "My grace is sufficient for you, My strength is made perfect in weakness." And suddenly, it was shown to me that I had to be weak if He was going to be strong.
When I was "too strong" God wasn't being allowed to be strong in my life. I would tell God, "Ok I am going to run and you catch up!" Because I'm soooooo busy right? God couldn't possibly handle my schedule. What I'm really saying is, "God, I can't handle Your strength."
If you know me, you know that I pretty much have a perpetual cold; 365 days a year, I have a tissue box in hand and a Rudolph nose. So recently I had a cold; no big deal it happens all the time! Except this one was not going away! Usually I have symptoms for two or three days, then just the sniffles and after a couple weeks, I just wait for the next cold to show up. But during this particular cold, I had horrible symptoms for a week straight! The throat, the ears, the nose--everything! It was miserable. Also at this time, my devotional life was not particularly active (remember I'm suuuuuuper busy). But during this week of sickness I found a free moment and I knew I needed to spend time with God. So I pulled out my Bible and devotionals, and the first thing I read was "Be still." Ouch.
I knew exactly what it meant. I went on to read Zechariah 2:13 "Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because He has roused Himself from His holy dwelling." God was so clearly trying to get my attention, yet even in my sickness, I was trying to be too strong. I had been trying to sprint without His guidance, without taking time to rest or breathe.
Hebrews: 12:1 says "...and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." The race of life is a marathon, not a sprint, and endurance doesn't run out or burn out, it lasts. We were meant to last! But not by our own strength. We actually have to be weak if God is going to be strong in our lives.
Proverbs 24:10 says "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." I can definitely say that I have "fainted" a few times by relying on my small strength; spiritually, at least, although during that week of sickness I probably could have physically fainted a few times. God's perfect strength allows us to face adversity, and to overcome it. It allows us to run with endurance, it allows us to do so much more than we could with our own measly strength. So then why don't we surrender sooner?
It's funny how we want to be near God so badly, we want Him to answer all of our prayers, we want to hear His voice, yet we are running in a sprint, blindly missing His answers, His voice, and His signs. It's not that God doesn't want to answer my prayers, or even that He hasn't--it's that when I am close to Him, spending time with every day, I hear Him louder, and I hear Him sooner.
I love what Jethro tells Moses, his son-in-law, in Exodus 18 after watching the way he leads the people. "What you are doing is not good (yeah, Jethro, keep it simple and to-the-point)...the work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone."
God tries to tell me this all the time, and thankfully, when I don't listen, His grace steps in and stops me. But I am learning, and I hope you will too...to hear God louder and to hear Him sooner. To accept that we need to be weak, so God can be made strong.
So put away the tiny, awkward clothes, stop sprinting and be still. His strength is so much bigger and better than ours, and to let it activate in our lives, all we have to do is be weak.
2 Corinthians 12:9
"But He said to me, My grace (My favor and loving-kindness and mercy) is enough for you [sufficient against any danger and enables you to bear the trouble manfully]; for My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness. Therefore, I will all the more gladly glory in my weaknesses and infirmities, that the strength and power of Christ (the Messiah) may rest (yes, may pitch a tent over and dwell) upon me!" AMP
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