Isaiah 64:4 “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
I’m not gonna lie to you, it’s been a while since I’ve been this exhausted. “God, what are you trying to tell me through my weakness?” I think to myself “I haven't even started working a full time ministry job yet, and I am already feeling stretched to my limit.”
I woke up last night at around 2:30 AM dehydrated. I went downstairs, drank some water and went back to bed. I didn't get one wink of sleep the rest of the night. Today I am in the FCA office rewriting my blog. I just got done with a job tearing down a trampoline and putting another one up (it is a lot more exhausting than it sounds), went home, ate a quick dinner, now I’m here. I feel like I haven't had a break in weeks. “God, what are you trying to teach me through my exhaustion? Father, fill me with your Holy Spirit.”
I am reminded of the armor of God, what it truly means to put it on, and what it means to go out in battle, not to fight a war of flesh and blood, but a battle against the power of spiritual forces, against principalities. Why do I always see myself choosing to fight against these things with my own flesh? Who is truly winning when I am fighting back the enemy with my own strength. When am I gonna realize the only way I can see true strength is when it's not my own, but God’s.
“God, when I look in the mirror, let me not be proud of seeing myself standing up straight and holding on with my strength. Let me look at myself as someone who needs you, who is weak without you, who can’t do life alone.” I am weak, I don’t have my own strength to keep on going, “Jesus, you are all I need. You are all I have.”
Maybe the reason I am being stretched so much right now is because I know who my God is, I trust and worship him through the stretching. I know if I don’t get stretched now, I won't have the strength to be stretched in the future. Maybe this isn’t about what I see, but it’s about having faith in a God who does see. Maybe it’s about acknowledging that if I truly want to see what God has promised me, I need to go through this. I shouldn't let my weakness stop myself from stepping into what God has for me. Maybe I should allow my weakness be the turning point of humility in myself, so that God can partner with me in my life, and we can move toward the goal with the same mind, and the same oneness it talks about in 1 Corinthians 6:17 “But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”
“Father, I look at you, and I thank you for who you made me to be, I thank you for what you do for me, and I thank you for your Son, it is because of Him that I may no longer have to rely on my own limited strength, but your limitless love and power.”
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