“Open your hand, Ezra! Open your hand!” I still remember the sweet, young Vacation Bible School counselor speaking in her peppiest voice as she was giving high tens to all of the kids in her group. When she got to Ezra, she was confused by his semi-open right hand. I could see her thoughts turning as she realized that he wasn’t just joking around, but he was struggling to open his hand and keep it open. “Is your hand ok, Ezra?” she asked cautiously. His older sister Eden, who was sitting next to him, quickly piped in. “Oh, it’s fine,” she said matter-of-factly, “it’s just weak because he had a stroke when my Mommy was pregnant with him.” I saw the shock in the counselor’s eyes and watched as she slowly took hold of Ezra’s hand as if it were suddenly very precious to her. She then gave him his high ten with a warm smile and moved on to the next child.
I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about Ezra. I’ve watched him go from dragging himself across the floor with one arm to hobbling around in a leg brace to now walking so well that his limp is barely noticeable. He has had hundreds of therapy sessions and has made significant progress. I am very proud of him. But even with all of that help, his weakness is not fully gone. Whether it’s putting on his socks and shoes or taking lids off of containers, there are many basic tasks that he struggles with greatly. He falls over often just as he did yesterday when he lost his balance on his chair, didn’t have the strength to prevent himself from falling, and fell right on top of his shattered bowl which fell right before he did giving him a few cuts on his hands. I’ve seen Ezra get bullied and I’ve heard the frustrated words, “I can’t! It’s too hard!” many times. Teaching him about the hope we have in Jesus and that he will have a strong body someday can be helpful at times, but in those moments when the weakness has defeated him I know he and I both wish it would just go away already.
The truth is, we’re all a little bit like Ezra. We all struggle with weakness in some way or another. As I was thinking about this, God brought 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 to mind: “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
I don’t know what the “thorn” is in the verse, but it’s clearly something so difficult for Paul that he asked God three times to take it away from him. How many times have I begged God to remove something hard from my life? Satan is intending to use the “thorn” to bring agony to Paul, but God is intending to use it to reveal His perfect power. With every weakness and hardship I have ever endured, Satan has, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, tried to break me. But when I have embraced the weakness and clung on to the only One who could help me, I have seen His power in amazing ways. When fear overtook my life because I did not know what would happen in the future, I found peace in God’s sovereignty. When pain had clouded my head and heart so much that I didn’t think happiness was ever possible again, I found healing in God’s extensive redemption. When I’ve tried so hard to display the fruits of the Spirit to my family but failed over and over again, I have found freedom in God’s gracious forgiveness. When I have become utterly overwhelmed by the evil in the world, I have found solace in God’s powerful death on the cross and the hope it brings. When I have come to the end of myself, exhausted, and ready to give up, I have found strength in God’s incomprehensible love. Whenever I can’t, I remember that He can. God can use Satan’s evil schemes to backfire on himself.
Recently, I went through a period of weakness in my own life. Physically I was weak because I re-injured my knee and a collarbone I once dislocated. Emotionally I was very down. I teared up every time I heard a song about God. Mentally I couldn’t focus. Spiritually I was stuck. I ended up texting a few of my girlfriends and asked them to pray for me. One of them graciously invited the kids and I over to her house so she could check on me. While our kids played outside together, she and I sat on her living room floor cleaning up a game of Monopoly as I talked out my thoughts and feelings of late trying to pin point the source of my current state. By the time I left, I thought that maybe I’d figured some things out, but I hadn’t.
A couple of days later I found a moment to be alone and I got on my knees and asked God to help me break through this. The verse, “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21) popped into my head. I couldn’t remember where that verse came from so I Googled it on my phone. In my Google search I came across a song that was titled “To Live Is Christ” by Sidewalk Prophets. I knew I needed to listen to that song. I found it on YouTube and read along with the lyrics as I listened. At the bridge of the song the words, “my greatest desire is to be with you,” were sung and I instantly broke down. I started sobbing heaving sobs. I’m not sure the last time I cried that hard. Finally I understood what was going on with me. I missed God. My greatest desire has become to be with Him.
Ezra has a greater dependence on Nick and me because he knows that we can do the things he can’t. This creates a special type of bond between us, a deeper appreciation of our roles in his life. When I realized that my greatest desire has become to be with God, a revelation came to me. All of my weaknesses have helped me fall more and more in love with Christ as I have experienced Him do what I can’t. Before, I used to wish my weaknesses away to achieve for myself a type of heaven on earth. It’s embarrassing to admit that if I had been given the choice to enter heaven, a place with no weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties, as mentioned in the verse above, I probably would’ve gone in even if Christ was not there. But now, as I have experienced the power and love of God in ways I never would have without the weaknesses of my own life, Christ is Heaven. I would rather stay on this earth along with all of it’s suffering if this is where He is. And He is here. Because of what Christ accomplished, we can have that intimate relationship with Him. So, like Paul, I can delight in my weaknesses because they give me more of Christ and I can experience Heaven on earth even now.
Whatever is... 