Your Weakness is His Opportunity to Shine!

I haven’t done much sewing in a lot of years. But I am making Stella a Christmas dress. Am making is a loose term for half of it is cut out and the other half is laying on the table. The sewing machine is yet to be set up and right now it’s just a dream in my mind. I can see how I want it to be, but nothing’s really formed yet. Since “dress up Sunday” is this week-end I have precious little time left to get it all together. I have a backup plan in case my dreams don’t make it to reality but tonight my plan is to get that little sweety’s dress finished.

Christmas is a great time to overload the hours with preparations. It’s that wonderful opportunity to bring out the best in the closets and the best in us. Sometimes, though, when I go through the Christmas decorations I find that somewhere along the way things have gotten broken or ripped or become tattered. It requires fixing, gluing or deciding if it’s going to make it into this year’s adornment. Some things don’t really look worthy to be seen. The worn and not so pretty ornaments remind us of our own not so perfect self. If we’re not careful we’ll look at our less than Martha Stewart holiday preparations and pronounce ourselves unfit for display. The tendency is to want Norman Rockwell to paint us and House Beautiful to highlight us, but life is messy. Most of us want to pull Christmas off without a hitch but imperfection abounds and life happens even while we’re having fun.

We’re not worthy. We’re not capable. We can’t pull this thing called life off without a hitch. We try to sew things up, glue the brokenness and patch the missing pieces but still we find ourselves less than. We’ll try to straighten ourselves up, dust ourselves off, start over again and work harder, do more, and hide the hurts, anguish and pain. But we’re still broken and we need something more than we can produce with our own hands to fix it all. We need someone else to come into our mess and make things right.

God speaks to my heart: Your weakness is My opportunity to showcase my glory. Stop worrying about the 'less thans' and look to Me, for I AM more than. I am more than a Savior, I am your wonderful counselor, your everlasting Father, and the prince of peace. I have come so that you can have life more abundantly than you can produce on your own. I AM the Mighty God. I am your protector, provider and repairer. I specialize in restoring people. I AM capable of taking everything broken, bent out of shape and unfit for sight and making it all new – including you. Look again at the less than perfect décor and let it all remind you that you are My precious child, perfected in Christ. Everything you lack is found in Me. In everything that you are declared unfit in this world I over-stamp with my seal of approval. You are precious in My sight and your days are numbered. But not so that you can worry that you won’t get it all done, but so you can rest in Me while you work. Relax, and know that I AM able to let My light shine through everything you do.

Oh beloved, the weakness you see in yourself is simply a beautiful decoration to show forth the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. If you don’t get it all done, don’t worry for He did! Let yourself enjoy the holidays and the preparation and the giving and whatever else your hand has to do, for His greatest blessing is when you let Him shine His glory through you for the world to see. He loves you and He’s for you and that makes things right all through the years.

2 Corinthians 12:9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Hebrews 11:1-2 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.

John 14:1 Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in Me.

Galatians 2:20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Psalm 57:2 I will cry to God Most High, To God who accomplishes all things for me.

Feeling Powerless? Check Your Connection

In our house we have good connections and not so good. My phone is having connection issues. I worked and worked on it, thinking it was the phone.  After all the work we discovered it’s the connection – the chargers – that are worn out. 

There are plug-ins that are loose as well. Try as I might to plug the vacuum in to the den’s plug, it just falls out. But when plugged in to another outlet, it works fine. 

Those loose connections cause consternation!  You get things set up, you go to work and the cord falls out of the connection. Slowly we are putting in new connections around the house and I have bought a new charger for both the house and the car. 

Our lives are like those connections. We are born again to stay connected fully and only to God.  We go along, have a great time, work, play, eat and take our hobbies to full throttle.  At first there are just little hiccups. Nothing we really have to stop and repair or look into. But the connection gets looser and looser. Finally, that connection is so loose that we’re unable to do the basics of everyday life. We lose our spark. We get apathetic.  We get lethargic. We get depressed.  We just can’t do what we once could do. We blame ourselves, we blame others, and we try to throw ourselves into some other connection. But none of that works.

Whether the vacuum cleaner is connected to power or not it still looks like a vacuum cleaner. The same with the lamp, the computer, the TV. They all look fine and yet without connection to the source of power they won’t work as they were intended. They’ll look perfect, but they will be powerless. So too we can look fine, but a life not connected to the Source of life will be lacking in the power needed to be a mature believer who moves in the gifts and calling of the Lord.

Finally, we stop. We pull over from our life of “stuff” and begin to look things over.  We see this as a bad thing. We’re sidelined. We’re powerless. We’re disconnected.  We feel alone, we feel useless and we feel things are broken for good.

God sees this as a good thing. His greatest desire is that we stay connected fully to Him. He intercedes for us to stay close to Him in power, prayer and peace.  Finally, we begin to get it. We get alone with God to see what’s really wrong. And God fixes us. He repairs the connection to Himself. He restores the power, reconnects our hearts and gives us a fresh start.

Oh beloved, plug in to the Ultimate Source this morning – the Lord Himself. With Him comes all you need for full power, life and godliness. Without Him you can do nothing. But when connected to Him you will have all the wisdom, power and love you will ever need. You will overcome adversity, you will pray with faith, you will receive power from on High and you will gain peace and joy. It doesn’t matter if you are weak on your own or broken and disengaged. With Him as your Source you will be able to do all things.  Not only will you have power, but your power and faith will increase as you rely on Him to do it all through you. You are the conduit and He is the True Power.  He knows you and He bids you to connect and reconnect daily to Him.

God loves you and He’s for you and that’s why He’s made a way to keep you from having loose connections so that you can walk in His power all the days of your life.

I Chronicles 11:9 And David became more and more powerful, because the LORD of Heaven's Armies was with him.

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

Romans 15:13 I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Colossians 1:11 being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience

John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

2 Thessalonians 1:11 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of His calling, and that by His power He may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.