Strength in Weakness

God gave us feelings, and this is a good thing.  A problem arises, however, when we allow our feelings to dictate what we do or how we respond to a situation.  Knowledge of the truth helps keep our feelings in check, and faith in God enables feelings to serve us well rather than being mastered by them.

Generally, parents have healthy and positive desires for their babies.  They want to nurture them to grow, learn to roll over, crawl, walk and talk.  A little child comfortable with crawling is not always keen to learn to walk because their legs are wobbly and uncoordinated.  Imagine a child who is barely able to stand with the aid of an object is made to stand in the middle of a room at a distance from a smiling parent who coaxes them to take a step.  The little one fusses or drops to the ground, not feeling happy about this torturous situation.  What is wrong with crawling?  Why is mum or dad just out of reach?  And why do we have to keep playing this awful game over and over?

A parent has a purpose and plan in mind for the child the child does not realise.  A parent knows the act of trying to stand will build strength and muscle coordination the baby does not yet possess.  Adults realise crawling on all fours provides limited mobility for developing infants, but we have feet and legs God created for us to be able to stand, walk, run, leap and dance!  Like babies, we are troubled when God does the equivalent of putting us at arms reach where we feel vulnerable so we will grow in strength and use it to walk towards Him in faith.  Sometimes we want to feel strong to run a marathon before we are willing to learn to take a stand by faith in God.

Though at times we may feel like God is not supporting or helping us, let us not lose heart.  It is faith in the goodness of God in the land of the living that prompts us to seek the LORD and trust He will supply the strength and ability to please Him.  He is good to remove things we used to balance ourselves and to lift us onto our feet where we feel alone and unsteady so we might learn to exercise ourselves in godliness.  Feelings of loneliness or being overwhelmed is a good signal for us to cry out to God as Psalm 61:1-2 says, "Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. ² From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I."  We would rather feel strong and able to take on the world, but God wants us to look to Him and rejoice in our weakness so He can be our strength.