As God Transforms Vulnerable Weakness Into Toughness

GRANTED, there is a place for a victorious attitude, but it’s only when there’s the real assurance of something veritable hoped for. And why wouldn’t we hope when the other alternative stares death, confusion, and the confounding in the face?

When there is no alternative, the best option looks best, and is the best. Even if it requires the most work. I’ve maintained for some time, that, for the person unafraid of work, there is nothing to be afraid of in life. I’m talking the true grit work of the emotions through turmoil, the mind tortured by loss and grief, and a heart tossed around like on the scurvy seas.

We ought to thank God when the circumstances of life lock us into one firm, right option of action — to go one way without swerving.

When we are bounded toward the right course of action — several forces assisting, whether they seek to assist or not — we are blessed, though it might seem we are trapped.

To be found locked in — it seems horrid at the time — but the forces of good are on our side. And more than heading us in the right direction is also this phenomenon; there is a compensation for being stretched at our most vulnerable and weak. We are being strengthened, even as we consider an out; even as we consider this is a distasteful annoyance — the temerity of God!

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You’ve no doubt heard, courtesy of Billy Ocean, that, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Well, there’s a gargantuan paradox involved. It’s not often that the tough are those who present as tough.

Those who end up being seen as toughest are the ones who felt weakest and most vulnerable, initially, but who strove just to survive. Weakness and vulnerability require toughness just to survive. And those who survive, thrive.

Those who are forgiven much learn the grace to forgive much.

Just the same, those who survive the greater tests of life are those who thrive through the hardest tests imaginable in the future.

This is why suffering is not to be spurned; especially when we are most vulnerable. God has it all in hand. When we can trust his anointed path for us — the right way — even though it is incredibly gut-wrenchingly hard — we find we have already been equipped with everything required to get through.

Learning to live your new life now is about making the seemingly impossible work by faith. “I can do this,” is all we need say.

God is faithful.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.