Tuesday, May 7, 2013

From Pity to Great Power (Again)

God’s Power comes when mine comes to an end,
So, there’s no need at all for the ‘me’ to contend,
Trust is ever simple—just surrender, it’s true,
It’s the only way ever that God’s Power will renew.
***
There is the regular reminder for all of us, I’m sure—a reminder that occurred for me recently when I insisted upon the use of my own pathetic strength—which is true pitiful and proud weakness—that great power vanishes when it’s no longer required.
God’s Spirit leaves the state and the country so far as we’re personally concerned.
Of course, God’s Spirit never leaves from anywhere. It’s always here. But as we quench the Living Spirit in us, that selfsame Spirit, the Person of the Living God in us, turns his face. God cannot abide with us as we venture hand-in-hand with the sin of pride; that we might forge our own self-willed way.
The magnificent heights of my pride were found in the breath of another’s prayer for me; that I would do things no longer in my own strength, but in God’s strength alone. Whoa, that was too much. Those sorts of things are always too much for our pride that regales upon the backlash that it’s not the ‘king of the moment’.
Pride always compels us to be kings and queens of the moment.
Unchecked pride soon designs and constructs the sort of searing anger that we don’t know where it came from. The enemy of God loves to confuse us. Dazed in an emotional lapse of quite monumental proportions, I leapt out of where I was quietly ‘controlling’ myself. Yep, pride.
***
The greatness of God in all this is he soon brightens the soul with an opportunity at perspective. It’s a glimmer and a glance—that’s all—a little foretaste—to see if we’ll come around.
The goodness of God is his grace in this situation. Who would be so routinely betrayed, yet forgive so gracefully? Only the Living Lord our God.
In the perspective of his greatness and goodness the Lord reminds us of how to access his joy, his peace, and to bear the fruit of repentance.
It is at the end of our strength—when we finally give our game away—that we gain insight for the repealing power in grace; we discern what now appears so simple, but for the very life of us seemed to confound us in that irredeemable anger of ours.
***
Strength and power are as obvious as they are simple—once we find them. Modes of surrender, humility and repentance redeem this power for us, which helps us in our weakness. Such ‘weak’ people that rely on their Lord as fully as they can have more power than the powerful pretend to have.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

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