Monday, April 30, 2018

Power in weakness ............. Parables 735

October 16, 2001

When golf balls were first manufactured, they had smooth covers. Someone soon discovered that after they were roughed up, they could get more distance. That is why golf balls are now dimpled.

I can imagine the first time these dimpled balls appeared on the market. No doubt a few golfers took one look and snickered: “Why anyone knows, a smooth ball goes faster and farther than a rough one. This thing is flawed!”

“Flawed” golf balls cannot hog the spotlight. When it comes to surprises, God’s people can go farther with imperfections too. In fact, God says our weaknesses are useful. When my husband became a Christian, he decided to sign up for a particular ministry in a large church, although he told the leader that he felt totally inadequate for it. He didn’t know anything about it and was not sure he had any skills in that area.

To his surprise, the leader replied, “Good. That is just the kind of attitude we want you to have.”

What Bob didn’t know then is that God tells us when we are weak, then we are strong. This seeming contradiction is found in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul talks about having a problem in his life that he asked God to remove, but God did not remove it. Paul tells the reason: “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’

At that, Paul was able to say that he would boast gladly about his weaknesses so that the power of Christ would rest on him. He could even delight in his inabilities and troubles because “when I am weak, then I am strong.”

This can be explained. When a person becomes a Christian, we are given the Holy Spirit who adds a new dimension to our life and character. Yet we have the same personality as before. Scripture calls it the “old nature.” God exhorts us to put off the old, which is not only sinful and selfish but also unable to obey God. He says we need to put on the grace and power of our new nature so we can do His will.

It sounds good but there is a trick to it. When we are living in the power of the old nature, we strive for superiority, self-confidence, and a sense of power. We even try using this self-sufficiency to enable ourselves to do the will of God, but it doesn’t work. That old nature cannot obey God no matter how confident it feels.

The problem is this: when we yield to the Holy Spirit as we should, we feel our inabilities and weaknesses rather than a great flush of power . . . and who wants to feel weak? Nevertheless, in weakness we learn to trust God and ask for His help. Our difficulty is that we expect that along with His help He will remove that sense of weakness but He doesn’t. He knows if He did, we would quickly stop trusting Him.

So the Christian who walks with God discovers that a power-filled walk might look powerful to others but we ourselves do not feel powerful. Instead, there is a huge sense of helplessness. In faith, we learn to trust He is helping us but it doesn’t feel like it.

Such irony. The life that feels ‘flawed and dimpled’ becomes a great instrument in the hands of the Lord. We become people who can go the distance. We need to abandon our typical human trait of wanting to appear smooth and flawless and realize that by welcoming a sense of feeling useless and without power, we become people who can accomplish the will of God.

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