gladitudes

Over the past couple months, I’ve kind of had to come face-to-face with some of my own weaknesses. It’s a really hard thing for me. I pretty much hate seeing where I fall short; it makes me feel sort of angry and defeated. My natural reaction, I’ve found, has been to try to figure out a way to make myself right—to find a way to fix myself.

I know from experience, though, that all my efforts to make myself better always fall short. Sometimes there are small improvements, but never the deep, transformational change that I really desire.

I read this verse this morning and it gave me some good perspective on stuff. In context, the Apostle Paul is talking about his own weakness:

II Corinthians 12:8-10 NLT

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. ⁹Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. ¹⁰That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

My thought is just this: instead of trying to run from weakness, why don’t I embrace it as an instance where God can come in and provide for me? I think that instead of hating my weaknesses, I ought to love them because at the places where I fall short, it provides an opportunity for God to prove Himself faithful and sufficient. As He does, then I will know him more and He will be more glorified in me.

Sometimes there are these moments in life where I question my ability to continue moving forward. It’s like I’m on a journey and ahead of me is a mountain and the closer I get the bigger it seems. I gaze at the mountain and begin to fret wondering how I will ever be able to scale it or at least how will I ever do it without injury or defeat.

I guess that is a little bit of where I am and have been. In these moments my need for help—my desperation for grace and salvation—becomes so apparent that I often find myself crippled with anxiety or overjoyed at the fulfillment of my need. I find (and am finding) that my deepest moments of despair can be the greatest opportunities to learn to trust God and find peace and joy in Him.

Now, if you’re a Christian and especially if you’ve been one for any period of time, this will sound very cliché. The notion of crying to God when we’re at the end of our rope and finding His grace there is common. What I am finding, though, is that when I actually find myself at the end of my rope, I don’t know what to do. I haven’t been here that much and all the sermons, books, and teachings on trusting God through trials seem to be just vague shadows in my mind. I’m on that border of the lands of theory and reality. The land of theory where the solution is a cliché is comfortable and familiar to me; the land of reality where one must take each step by faith instead of by reciting a phrase to make things right is unfamiliar and scary to me.

But in this land where I must walk by faith and not rely on what my eyes tell me or my heart wants me to believe, I find there is overwhelming peace and joy. These not, though, because of the faith I’m expressing, but completely because of the one in whom I am expressing the faith.

Isaiah 30:18 (NASB) says,

Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you
For the LORD is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him.

God wants to give us grace and he wants to show us compassion! How often we stumble in the dark instead of just reaching for His hand? We forfeit such grace in doing this.

Psalm 43:5 (ESV) says,

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my salvation and my God.

Again, why do we get down? Why do we fear? God is worth trusting! We must believe it!

And finally, Psalm 44:3 says,

They did not conquer the land with their swords;
   it was not their own strong arm that gave them victory.
It was your right hand and strong arm
   and the blinding light from your face that helped them,
   for you loved them.

The reality at the end of the day is that victory only comes at the hand of the Lord. Our success is totally up to Him. If we only would seek Him and look to Him when we’re in trouble, we would live lives that would be so much more peaceful and so much more full of joy.

Psalm 16:11 (ESV):

You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Today I was reading in 1 John and came across this passage:

1 John 3:2-3 (English Standard Version)
“²Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. ³And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

First, this passage gives me great hope! Oftentimes, in my journey to know my Lord more, I get discouraged because my own shortcomings and insufficiencies. While I know that I can trust God to be perfecting me (to be completing the work He began per Philippians 1:6), sometimes the completion of that seems very far off. Thus, confidently knowing that at some point I will become like Christ gives me great joy.

The second thought I have from this passage is more of an application. Notice how it says that “we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” This implies that just seeing our Lord Jesus Christ has great power to transform us. While we must wait till the day he is revealed to see him in his fullness, in the mean time, by seeking the Lord through his word and in prayer we can begin to see a foreshadowing of him. I want this desire to see my Lord to consume me, as I want to be changed more into his image. I want to love like Jesus, and I want to change the world as he did also. I want to proclaim his praise and glory to the nations, and I want to tell all people of the great gift of grace he has to offer them—which can save them from the eternal consequences of their sin. I know that in order to do this, though, I must be changed daily to be more like him.

So this must be my goal: to know Jesus more—that is, to see him more clearly—by seeking him constantly.