I was listening to a song by Leeland the other night and it really struck a cord. The chorus is basically plagiarizing John 3:30, where it says “He must become greater, I must become less.” The chorus also talks about how when we are at our weakest, God is at His strongest. That made me think about my life in the past nine or ten months. I have been at my lowest, at my weakest. To be honest, I’m a pretty weak person. But with God’s help, I got through the events of the past nine months, and I can make it through whatever else life throws my way. God truly was my strength during the past nine months because I know for a fact that I would not be where I am now if it weren’t for His intervening in my life.
I was curious as to what exactly weak meant. I looked it up and this is what I found:
“lacking strength; not able to sustain or exert much”
If applied to my life, those are pretty accurate definitions. Weakness can be overpowering and I’ve definitely experienced that. To be weak is to be drained, whether it be physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or a combination of those. And it amazes me how when we are in such a low state, God uses His power and strength to get us through. It wasn’t until last night that I really realized how much strength God exerted in my direction. My life was filled with blow after blow in a very short amount of time. It just seemed like things kept getting out of control at the same time. After Cameron’s accident I was wiped out physically and emotionally. Somehow my faith was still pretty strong; I know now that it was God sustaining me; giving me strength when I was extremely weak. A few weeks later I moved away to college, to a completely different atmosphere surrounded by strangers. A few months later, our youth pastor was let go of for reasons that still upset me. In fact, people kept information from me about this incident because they knew I wouldn’t be able to take it. And while they were probably right about that, it literally made me sick because everyone I was close to back home knew what was going on and I didn’t. And with my terribly pessimistic mind, I was of course thinking the worst. And if that fiasco wasn’t enough, just a few weeks after that, three of my relatives were in a very severe car accident. The week that happened was terrible. I had been sick all week, Cameron had been on my mind a lot, and then I get a phone call telling me about the accident. The day that happened was one of my worst days. I was physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually weak. It was the night I decided to come home after one semester of college.
Even though all those events were terribly negative and made me incredibly weak, God was good and He was at work. I can directly quote what I posted a few weeks ago: “God can be glorified through the hurt and sadness, if just for the simple truth that we are still alive and breathing. It’s a testimony to God’s goodness and power that we can still stand and go on with our lives after suffering whatever it may be.”
More times than not from August to December, that was pretty much my testimony. I was just surviving; I was alive and breathing and even though there was a lot of hurt, God was still faithful and good just for the fact that I was still alive and that I could go on with my life, even though it was so difficult at times.
Continuing on God’s strength in our weakness, I was reading my Bible last night and came across Psalm 18. It truly was what I needed to hear last night. I absolutely love times like that; when God speaks to you through something like reading the Bible.
“The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge…In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice…He reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy; from my foes, who were too strong for me…They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support…You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.” – Psalm 18:1, 6, 16, 17, 18, 28
Steph, you make me smile. Your faith is beautiful. The lower we go, the higher the Lord is raised. Even when you're convinced you're weak, remember that the Lord is carrying you across the desert. He has betrothed himself to you because you are precious to Him.
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