Experiencing Power in Weakness

Lowest desperation and highest command of fear,

Proclaims the need within the vessel to hold to Him so dear,

When we call upon His Majesty on High,

Then somehow we retrieve the grace again to fly.

***

Many people find it so hard to understand, let alone experience, what this power in weakness is all about. I talk in terms of surrender as if it was an easy thing, yet it is both easy and hard.

It is easy for those who have tasted the glory in their nothingness. It is hard for those who see no sense in journeying with God beyond something into nothing. That ‘something’ of the world we cling onto is our nemesis; it looks like a friend but it really is an enemy.

These are all upside down principles.

We must be willing to let go of the little we have in order to receive the kingdom of God.

And all of us, when it comes to this world, have very little, but it seems so much to us. We have our possessions, our marriages, our families, our jobs, homes, and vocations; in accord with eternity these are principles of nothing, yet we highlight them as gods and they become the source of our very identity. No wonder we experience so much loss and grief. We grieve only what we both love and lose.

God has given us these gifts to appreciate, to love, to enjoy; but where we are fulfilled is in him—the Lord of Glory and Majesty on High.

When we understand, as the hymn says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will become strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace,” that all of life pales into vast insignificance compared to the wonders of eternity and the knowledge of God, we then finally become able to live this full and abundant life we have never known, and therefore we experience power in our weakness.

Suddenly, perhaps for the first time, life makes sense; that life only makes sense in our weakness, because in our weakness is truth.

Understand we will willingly be weak, because in our weakness we derive strength.

The upside down gospel worldview comes home to give us hope in the worst of our experiences: truly when things are at their most abysmal we have closest access to power—if we turn to God in unmitigated surrender.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.