It goes against everything we know, to treasure our broken places. From the time we are born we are told to try harder, do better, and we admire the capable, the beautiful, the successful, especially the ones who are strong where we are not. So we build on our strengths and work on our weaknesses and repeat to each other that “you can accomplish anything if you set your mind to it”…and “if you can dream it, you can do it.”

But what exactly are we working towards anyway, and what is the prize? This dusty whirlwind we are caught in could run us ragged and weary, and we could all howl long through the ages with Wise King Solomon: “Everything is meaningless…completely meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Would it be so horrible to just let go, to admit that we are only Dust and Breath and falling far short of perfect? Stop the pretense and sit quietly awhile before God, just as we are and empty-handed? Despair and hope are sometimes two sides of a coin, and can flip just about as quickly.

We talked about God’s strength in our small group, how it comes to us in our weakness, not just to supply our need but because of our need.  How when we use up all our own resources, and clear away the clutter of anxious trying, then there is space for Him– His very Presence utterly enough for every need, making up for what is lacking, and His glory spills out everywhere. The word is episkenoo…dwell in, make a home in. The weak place in my life I do not want becomes His own dwelling place and grace is poured out on empty hands and we become rich in His strength. Ordinary pots of earthenware, rough-shaped and cracked through everyday use, but brimful with Heaven’s light.

No wonder Jesus said we look at all the wrong things and Paul, seeing far with his eyes fixed on eternity, could say “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9)….make a home in me. God isn’t interested in being a convenience store clerk to dutifully trot out whatever we may need for the moment, and then go about His own business and stay out of our way until we need Him again. He is looking for living temples to inhabit and make His own. “So let hope rise, and darkness tremble in His holy light, and every eye will see Jesus, our God, great and mighty to be praised.” (With Everything, Hillsong United)

“Because God exchanges dust and ashes for beauty and miracles and He cares so much that He doesn’t care that it’s not fair…. God raises whole people out of ashes and He writes mysterious grace in dust, and with Him, dust and spit and muddied things can still help us see.”  Ann VosKamp

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary;   His understanding is unsearchable.” (Isaiah 40:28)

I’ve been wrestling with this for a few weeks now…how can I fix it, change it, see it a new way, make it work somehow…and what parts of this equation am I even capable of affecting? Good to think through, but that is the crux of the matter: what I can and cannot control. Overwhelming, what all is out there at the mercy of others’ whims, and the waves of circumstance. It scares me and a whole army of emotions rise up to defend such weakness, and what wouldn’t I give to be strong enough to take charge and change the shape of what is? It seems counter-intuitive to say with the Apostle Paul, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” (2 Corinthians 11:30) But I am trying, doing the few small things that are within my circle of responsibility, and reminding myself to be okay with the rest of the tangle and my helplessness, to patiently follow and await God’s resolution.

My nephew is riding his bike across the country again, this time with a flock coming along behind, young adults searching for who they are becoming, on the backroads of America. The week he set off I remarked that leading small groups is at times rather like herding butterflies, and he laughed, and then shared his trepidation– this twenty-something wondering if he had what it took to lead others in such an undertaking. I thought of telling him that it was doubtful. That God has a way of calling the apparently unsuitable (ask any of the shepherds, crooked accountants, fishermen, and religiously uptight in the gospel narratives), that God delights in displaying His abundant resources when we run dry, that in following where God calls he will be shaped into the man who could lead others….but somehow the timing didn’t seem right for any of that. Instead, I told him I would pray for him as he goes.

It’s yet another paradox of the Christian faith-journey that learning to lead requires learning to follow, and both require strength. Both require giving up control and being content there. Both require a Source of strength that is not your own.

It’s been over a month on the road now, and my nephew wrote this week about learning to face unwelcome emotions and letting God meet him there, instead of trying to outrun the misery or fix it any way he can. He said how it seemed like doing nothing about the situation, but really it was doing Something most important: meeting God, and building relationship with the One who knows him best inside. I thought again of Paul writing, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” 2 Corinthians 4:9-10) Our weakness, if we can name it and accept it, opens the door for God to apply His strength to the equation, shape what exists to His reality and make it something new. “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

It is as clear as day, repeated over and over again, that when I can admit my utter need and ask for God’s help, His abundance is ready to be poured out for me. “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) It is as clear as day that the First Sin runs deep and strong through us, still trying to order the world to our liking by our own efforts, as if we were the Creator rather than the created, and trying to shed our weakness by whatever means possible. Very slowly I am learning to be at peace under the mighty hand of God, to rest under His wings like a chick and let Him care for me. All of us children, finding out who we are becoming in the backroads and community centers and dialogues of America, learning to lead and learning to follow.

“Are you mourning over your weakness? Take courage! You must be conscious of weakness before the Lord gives you the victory. Your emptiness is the preparation for being filled wih God’s strength. Being cast down is the making ready for your lfiting up.” (Charles Spurgeon)

“You don’t have to have the strength to go on. You just need Him.” (Ann VosKamp)

One of the devotionals I read this week talked about the importance of peace-making as Christ-followers who have been charged with carrying on the Savior’s restoration work. Forgiveness, conflict-resolution, trying to understand where others are coming from– all non-optional for an Ambassador of Peace, of course, but it struck me how difficult these are to actually carry out in everyday life with any consistency. My head agrees that this is how Christ acts, what Christ values, but when a situation arises where such skills are needed, my heart is usually a casualty and everything inside arms up for battle. The real war is not between me and others, but between my heart and my will, and why did no one ever warn me that this may be the hardest battle I will ever fight?

Whoever painted Christians as weak-willed goody-two-shoes clearly never tried to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. Up the hill with the cross-beam burden on His back, bent with the pain of someone else’s sin, and willing to let it pierce Him right through to death: this is the “how- to” model for the restoration team in this Extreme Makeover: World Edition. Something my heart does not want to hear when it has been attacked, or ignored, or let down yet again.

It takes strength to turn and shoulder the burden of someone else’s pain and sin, and obeying Jesus is the hardest thing you will do in life, because the fight with Self is to the death, and only you can choose to drive the nails through. “But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.” (Romans 8:13) It is a command that somehow doesn’t seem as dire as it really is, until you are in the heat of the moment and everything you want and feel screams to be heard.

But there is strength here too, mysterious and unfathomable: “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.” (Romans 6:4) Our wills choosing what is right, our wills choosing to submit to the King, laying down the whole bundle of emotions and needs and desires that drive us and make us human…just taking that first step of even wanting to obey, and then allowing Him to make it happen, re-make us. Restoration begins here first, in the confines of my own heart, making peace between my will and His. “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.” (Philippians 2:13)

God, I need the strength to do what is right today. And tomorrow I will need it all over again. Help me to keep on wanting to obey– help me to keep asking for strength– so I can follow You as a peacemaker in this world and not give up.

“Am I prepared to let God grip me by His power and do a work in me that is worthy of Himself?” (Oswald Chambers)

“Break down our pride
And all the walls we’ve built up inside
Our earthly crowns and all our desires
We lay at Your feet

Let hope rise
And darkness tremble
In Your holy light
That every eye will see
Jesus our God
Great and mighty to be praised” (With Everything– Hillsong)

It came in Email this week, the brave soul-searching of a young woman, telling me about the lack of Christmas again this year and how God had blessed her season with kindness from near strangers. I wished that I had known in time to send her a gift over the holidays. And then she said how she has been thinking about “that unwanted precious little gift” of disappointment, and the way it has prepared her for life in unexpected ways. Her own broken-hearted experiences opened her eyes “to see people as broken, imperfect, and in need of a Savior and in that cherish the promises of God, because He will never fail or forsake.” And I realized that God had given her an even better gift: His strength, and the faith to see the work He was accomplishing.

Desperate is a good place to be if it drives you into the arms of God. Weakness is the perfect place to start if you are looking for strength, and God will use anything and everything in life to get you to that place of need so that you can find Him your all-sufficient source. A hard-won precious gift of truth for all those who are disappointed by this world and set their hearts on God. “They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.” (Psalm 1:3)

When I untangle my heart from the things of this world and seek more of God, there is a sturdy foundation there for a life to grow strong. And the hard thorny things that prick and grieve, these become gifts that grow strength, cultivate Christ-likeness inside.

It is looking up to Jesus when our hearts hurt that renews us; it is asking Him all the hard questions instead of rattling around the walls of our own very small conclusions that cuts our troubles down to size; it’s working out our faith into every experience of life that shines glory everywhere, this living out our relationship with Jesus that makes us strong, because it is His own strength at work in us.

May we receive all the unexpected and difficult as gifts from the hands of the Giver, and plant our roots down firmly into His strength.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall…” (Matthew 7:24-25)

“Set a fire down in my soul
That I can’t contain, that I can’t control.
I want more of You, God;
I want more of You…” (Jesus Culture)

After my first shoulder surgery, two decades ago, and after all the life-inside-out months of healing and therapy and exercise and persistence, my doctor told me that this would never really go away. It’s not the kind of thing you can get through and get over, be done with it now. “You will always need to strengthen this joint and the muscles around it, keep it strong, in order for this repair to be worth anything.” And I did, but life and time have a way of eroding most human efforts, and so I faced a second go-around just a couple years ago. Worse this time, because I knew what was coming. “Better this time,” the doctor said, “because you know what it takes to get through this, and you already have those habits of strength built into your life from the last time.”

We talked about growing strong in our small group on Wednesday. We eat and rest several times a day for our bodies to stay strong and able to do our work. Why would it be such a novel concept that we would need to build faith-strength daily, as well? And if you’ve been down to the bottom you know that this brokenness never really goes away….it’s not the kind of thing you get through and are done with. This is life as a sin-bent human and the way to live as a Christ-follower, one of the redeemed, is to build those strength habits right in and commit to it for life.

David Jeremiah writes of five life-changing habits to build into your New Year, and they read like strength exercises for the soul.

• Personally connect with others on Christ’s behalf. It’s what Paul was doing twenty centuries ago and his words still speak to us: “…we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!'” (2 Corinthians 5:20) Tell your own God-story and be His hands and feet to the people around you so they can meet Him too.
• Quiet your heart before God. There is no substitute in this noisy busy world for unplugging everything and meeting God alone. Often. “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” (Isaiah 30:15b) Focusing on Him changes everything. It changes me.
• Drink in God’s truth as if it were your only hope. Pastor Jeremiah writes: “It takes a living book to sustain a living spiritual person. It takes a book written by the Spirit of God to connect with the spirit of man.” It really is the guidebook that can get you safe Home through the wilderness and the dark, that will keep your feet walking straight and your heart from despair.
• Be a servant. Jesus said “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” (Matthew 25:40) Not just because we love Him but because we want to be like Him who touched the lepers, who washed dusty feet, who carried the cross…where do we even start to learn to serve with that kind of joy and freedom?
• Step back and see the big picture of God’s plans. He is bringing redemption to mankind and restoration to the world He created, and we are invited to participate. Join in the mission and make His priorities yours. It is the single biggest adventure in life, to take the gospel “to the ends of the earth.”

These five strength-building habits take time, perseverance, energy– no question about it. But here’s another Kingdom paradox, that spiritual disciplines cannot be gained with sheer power of will, but only by heart-deep surrender to the power of God. It will take a lifetime of putting into practice, a constant choice to bend Self to the reign of the King…but strength grows with the practice, and faith puts down roots till the very landscape of a soul changes. This is a forever lifestyle. I would not choose any other.

“I give my life to you
My heart to you
You’re all I need
Come and make me new…

Jesus Christ, take our lives, 
We won’t waste another day; 
Holy God, fill our hearts, 
We won’t ever be the same.” (Give My Life to You– Elevation Worship)

“I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (Ephesians 3:16-17)

I’ve been thinking a lot about strength as we approach this new small group, and it keeps surprising me, this mental unwrapping turn by turn, peeling away words and finding it many-layered…changing shape, even contradictory as you get deeper.

I admire strength in others: the strength of the bold, the confident, the decisive, the brave. I recognize the strength of conviction, the determination to succeed, the ambition to accomplish and lead. Strength is power.

But the word shows up in some pretty strange verses of Scripture, and the more I think about it, the more I see it in the small hidden places of life, as quiet and foundational as the change of seasons and the sun and the stars. Strength is what to look for in a wife, according to the King’s mother recorded in the Proverbs of the King. And this kind of strength is of the heart, of the mind, of the character.

“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies,”  the wise royal mother points out. The original descriptive word is hayil….strong, like a soldier or an army, powerful, valorous, a force to be reckoned with.  And we translate it noble, virtuous, excellent– all our highest words for Good. The down-deep building blocks kind of Good that is settled and dependable, rooted in faith and God’s love. The Musician-King knew it too: “My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever.” (Psalm 73:26) I suspect that this kind of person isn’t even aware of strength, most of the time, like the heroine who is still in the middle of her adventures, setting her face to the goal, not sure how the story will end yet.

I know women like that, have seen them quietly and gladly doing what needs to be done: reading stories and patching “owies” and rocking to sleep; taking meals across the road to an aging father each day; going to work early and coming home weary to help with homework and chores; keeping watch to the end by a sister’s bedside, through the last stages of cancer; listening earnestly to the outpourings of teenage drama and praying without ceasing; patiently washing yet another load of laundry and scrubbing out the stains, mending the torn; choosing to start all over again as a mother in order to raise a grandchild; mopping up muddy footprints and sorting the endless piles of details a family leaves behind in every room.  Life is messy and women are called to be the ones who bear it, straighten it, keep track of it, soothe it– so that families can grow and be nourished. This is strength too and the kind God calls beautiful.

Strength sounds big, but acts small. Strength seems great but stoops to help the weak. Strength is goodness in action. Strength mirrors Christ who came as a child and gave His innocence for our guilt. Strength like that serves… forgives… perseveres… bends to the weight of others’ burdens… and keeps on loving even when it is hard.

I have a feeling that “becoming a woman of strength” might look a lot different than we think it will, by the time we are finished with this study.

“Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.’ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.” (Proverbs 31:30-31)

“…the most freeing place for a soul is in the abandonment to the will of God.” (Ann VosKamp)