Lois and I celebrated my 72nd birthday Monday. The number almost takes my breath away. (So does walking up stairs.) My body feels 72, but not my mind. (You may diagnose me differently if you regularly read what I write.) Anyway, we enjoyed a wonderful day together—brunch and dinner out (not at the same time), Lois’ card and letter to me (I cried) and the movie “The Notebook” (more tears). Unusual all-day rain kept us from the beach (original plan), but it was just as well. We enjoyed being quiet together appreciating having each other. I’m more in love than ever.
At the risk of sounding egotistical, here’s one line from Lois’ letter: “Your ability to persevere and continue to show Christ’s love is witness to the power of the faith you have taught—and lived—all your life.” (Ah, yes. Love is blind. Is that in Leviticus?) I shared her sentence only because I’ve struggled recently with the Lord’s answer to Paul’s pleading prayers to be freed from his “thorn in the flesh” . . .
“My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9a).
I read those words and wonder where the Lord’s gracious perfected power is in me. I limp in pain leaning on my walker. My faith fights feebly against my disability. Some days I’m angry or depressed. God’s promises seem to mock me. No divine power-surge in this old body! No spectacular signs of God’s sufficient grace in me! Not only do I not boast of my weaknesses, I hate people seeing me this way. No contented sighs coming from this mouth. Where’s the Lord’s power?
Then Monday I read Lois’ letter. “Your ability to persevere and continue to show Christ’s love is witness to the power of the faith you have taught—and lived—all your life” (and other such statements). There it is! There’s the Lord’s perfected power in my weakness!
Lois sees me persevering and continuing to show Christ’s love. She sees me as a witness to faith’s power. (She sees many other virtues I won’t point out for fear of sounding like Donald Trump.) These virtues that she sees are evidence of the Lord’s perfected power of grace in me.
I realize again that his power doesn’t displace weakness; it shines in weakness. It doesn’t turn a disabled body into Superman; it displays Jesus in the attitude and words and ways of the disabled. His power doesn’t rescue me from the Calvary road; it inwardly renews me on the Calvary road. (And one day, just as God’s power exploded in the resurrection of the crucified Christ, it will explode in this rotted, worm-eaten body and resurrect it imperishable and immortal.)
This is how, of course, God’s power was perfected in Paul. It’s impossible to read 2 Corinthians, other Pauline letters and the book of Acts and not know that Paul suffered for Christ. Just read 2 Corinthians 6:4-10; 11:23-29. Only in 2 Corinthians 12:9 did Paul pray to be spared suffering. And when he didn’t receive what he wanted, he wrote:
“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses,
so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content
with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities.
For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9b,10).
That’s the Lord’s perfected power in a mere sinful mortal who trusts his saving grace!
I’m not saying the Lord never delivers. Read Hebrews 11 and realize there are times he does and times he doesn’t. But when he doesn’t, his power isn’t absent—just demonstrated in different ways.
Listen! There’s no need to run to “healing evangelists” or to send money for an “anointed prayer cloth.” Our Father never turns a deaf ear to his children. Our Lord never ignores his redeemed. He just asserts his gracious power in different ways according to his sovereign and good will.
That means I am as much a miracle as I would be if the Lord physically healed me!
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