“All God’s giants have been weak
people who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with
them.”
— J. Hudson Taylor
“The Lord
said to Moses, ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’ And
Moses said to the Lord, ‘If your
presence will not go, do not carry us up from here’.”
— Exodus 33:14 (NRSV)
We all know too well the
sense for aloneness, as we’ve perhaps all had that sense of feeling like we
belong. God’s Presence is like the latter, but without a single other soul
around. Not that we cannot feel his Presence when others are around.
When we feel we belong—heart
and soul—to the Lord our God—with no
misconceptions clouding us in our doubting—we want to go with God and continue
to go.
Going is our way. With
pleasure we go. Even in the anxious desire for courage to step, we go.
But at times God does not comfort
us with knowledge of his Presence; or, perhaps more correctly put, we just
sense a dearth of all divine perspective—no assurance whatsoever that we are on
the right path or have the blessing of God as we go.
When we lack this sense of
directedness we wander and it’s not good. Desperation is the reality we may
deny, but it is the reality. We need to know God goes with us.
Power Requires Weakness Which Gives Us
God’s Presence
Weakness is central to
experiencing God’s power—which implies God’s presence.
It is futile to go
anywhere God does not go or will not go, yet we have all been there, having run
not just too far ahead but completely off the trail. We go ahead of God or off
the trail because we are relying on our own strength and we have departed from
God's presence. As a result we are devoid of power.
Wise is the person that
quickly detects the absence of God’s Spirit in their going out and coming home.
It should be our constant spiritual sense, but the more we waver from God the
less access we have to this sense.
Mixed with wisdom—and essentially
part of it—is a catalyst of weakness. Wisdom allows us to open into our
weakness. Weakness invites the gentle power of the Spirit of God into our
situations. And in weakness we know God’s Presence, because the Lord will not leave us alone in our time
of true need that comes with it the commitment to be with God.
***
If only we would go only
where God goes and nowhere else. That requires weakness; to come to the end of
our own strength, which is a weak strength at its best. When we come in
weakness we can go with strength in God’s power by his Presence.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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