Weak

by Dottie Ryan

“Blessed arethe poor in spirit, fortheirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:3-5).

I’m wondering if the truth of the Sovereignty of God is becoming clearer, and possibly, more comforting to you.  Have you been able to take in the fact that He chose you — called you by name — and that He has orchestrated and allowed all the circumstances of your life to show you just how much He loves you and to what lengths He will go to sanctify you?  He has chosen us to be vessels for His glory.

God’s Sovereignty is not an easy thing to grasp.  But, as Proverbs 3:5 says, we must trust Him. We must not lean on our own understanding or attempt to make sense in our human minds of God’s ways and His thoughts, because we are not able.  Even though if we are His we have the mind of Christ, we must never forget that we are still mere man and He is so “Other.” His ways are so much higher.  Yes, we are but dust that God chose to mold into man and breathe His life into.  This is something huge to celebrate — that He spoke life into these dead, earthly vessels. Yet, the more we walk with our Creator — our Savior — our Redeemer — the Lover of our souls, the more we are bound to come to the conclusion that, we are weak and He is strong. And this, out of necessity; it is by His design.  It is in our weaknesses that He stands out especially in our lives.

Have you been able to acknowledge that you are weak? Poor in spirit?  “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” those having nothing to bring to the Lord but their sin and their human frailty, “…for they shall be comforted.” O, the comfort of God in exchange for our weaknesses.  Only a loving, caring, Shepherd would do something so drastic — so awesome!

Laurie reminds us that we should “be reassured in our weakness and inability” because in them we will cling more to Jesus.  He humbled Himself — He made Himself nothing by being born in the likeness of man. We are also to be humble if we are to follow Him. I must confess that I often don’t know how to follow the Lord — what that looks like — what that will require of me.  So my only recourse is to call out for help to ask Him to show me how.  I’m reminded of a song by Chris Rice called “Come to Jesus.”  This will always be our only course of action in everything we do for the rest of our life.  Some of the words to this song are: “Weak and wounded sinner / Lost and left to die / O, raise your head for Love is passing by / and come to Jesus.”

We are hopefully coming to realize that we are totally dependent on Him.  May this awareness move from the pages of Scripture into our minds, into our hearts, and into our daily walks.  That by His grace we are able to cry out: “O Lord, I am weak — help me.”  And calling out to Him in prayer, knowing He hears our cry.