wisdom

Weakness

~ Extravagant Hope ~ Leave a comment

The sun hasn’t been up for long. I’m sitting in my favorite spot with my coffee, of course. I am feeling out of sorts and restless this morning. The patio and garden are cool and lovely with early birds and critters stopping in for breakfast. I know there is peace to be found here, but it’s elusive. Things are weighing on my heart and circumstances happening that leave me feeling feeble, chaotic, and uncertain. Those are not feelings I like, nor do I want them hanging around making me feel out of control and incapable.

My mind is trying to process and organize all these things – trying to fix them because I fancy myself a fixer. As I’m sitting, a breeze picks up and tosses some leaves and spent blooms around the garden. I notice that they are at the mercy of the breeze. It isn’t a wild and insane storm; it is simply a breeze that is stronger than the blooms – the blooms are weaker than the breeze. Pondering this, remembered words pop into my mind…my strength comes into its own in your weakness.

Weakness. This isn’t a word most of us want associated with ourselves. However, strength needs weakness.  When we are at the end of ourselves and knowing how to fix and manage the thing, this is when Jesus has room to come in with His power, strength, wisdom, and compassion to protect, fix, and do miraculous things. I don’t believe He views our weaknesses as something to look down on or shake His head at; I believe He views our weaknesses as beautiful opportunities to shower us with His grace, love, and protection and to impart His perfect strength into us and our circumstances. He shows us glimpses of the future as He opens and closes doors, the foreshadowing of eternity and of Himself as we have a front row seat to watch Him do the impossible and comfort and heal us when life doesn’t turn out how we had prayed it would.

It’s good to remember that He is the Master Weaver of our life tapestry. He sees the beginning, middle and end. He sees where our lives will intersect with another’s journey.  Perhaps the unique and specific strengths He has given us will be exactly what is needed to help someone who finds themselves in a place of weakness, where our strength is perfectly matched to their circumstances. 

Weakness doesn’t have to hold a negative connotation. It has much more depth than that. Perhaps it has a richness to it that speaks to humanity needing each other to get through life and to witness acts of kindness and heroics since we are all unique in our strengths. In another’s weakness we get the beautiful opportunity to be His hands, feet, words, and comfort. We also get to be on the receiving end of another’s strength. The tapestry of humanity is a lovely thing  that intersects and strengthens as we witness startling acts of bravery and kindness; a chance to bring hope. There is beauty to be found in weakness.

Longing

~ Extravagant Hope ~ Leave a comment

It rises up from deep in my soul.  The sensation is difficult to describe, and I need it to have a name.  Somehow that will make it seem safe and predictable, possibly evencontrollable.  It is pressure that builds and needs a release like a cry that can only be satisfied by an answering calm, a gentling of the urgency; a whispered word, saying “Peace, be still child; how very close I am to you.” 

It is birthed in quiet moments of meditation and worship where time ceases to exist, as I have Your undivided attention.  My voice and Your Spirit mix and intertwine in the Heavenlies bringing delight to Your heart and setting into motion things I could never comprehend.  It is so beautiful, yet not safe and certainly not predictable – uncontrollable. This feeling surges up as I fall to my knees in awe of all that You are knowing that the small bit I do know of You is almost more than I can bear.  Knowing there is more, that You are richer and more brilliant than my most vivid dreams frightens me because that too is not safe or predictable and cannot be contained.  No – it is holy, a consuming fire, pure, wild, and more fierce and passionate than I can handle on my own.

It swells up when my fingers finally release their death grip on what I knew all along I could never control yet almost died in trying.  I hear it in the sound of chains falling and walls crumbling as another stronghold tumbles to the ground; the scent of victory overcoming the stench of defeat.  The feeling comes as a wave, a pounding of the heart as Your anointing falls when obedience calls and is answered with, “Yes Lord, here I am.” 

It is there when the howling loneliness shouts for filling and claws in desperation until Your presence is given permission and enfolds and permeates the void.  I sense it when joy unspeakable and peace that passes all understanding snaps like a banner in the wind, high above the circumstances and distractions of life proclaiming that Jehovah Nissi is my covering and victory.

Waiting in Your presence I begin to understand the sensation is a soul-deep desire for You – a needy emptiness that can only be filled by all that You are. It is the craving my spirit knows will only be satisfied when I am forever in Your presence; an obsession keeping me hungry and thirsty for revelation, wisdom, truth, and a startling intimacy found only with You. This isn’t safe or predictable and certainly not controllable but will be with me until I see You face to face.

So, I will let go and embrace the wildness and fierceness of it.  I will welcome it with open arms and a tender heart.  I will name it longing.