For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.
- 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Yesterday I posted a meme I had come across. I planned to follow it up with something like: Just ask Sarah or Abraham, Joseph or Moses, Mary or Peter; Daniel, Paul, another Mary, Simeon, Annah, several blind guys, lepers, even a dead child and her parents...
Oddly enough (?) my reading today drove the point more deeply home. (As I used to say with every message preached, "This one is for me, before it is for anyone else.")
Paul writes of the power of light in the midst of darkness, and that this light of hope is housed in fragile jars of clay. We are the jars of clay.
Flawed.
Fragile.
Apt to break.
Often in need of repair.
God has chosen it to be this way. He has chosen to place the power of the gospel's hope within our fragility.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed...
- 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
A friend recently asked me to define progress. I said, "...movement toward a goal." Dory put it this way, "Just keep swimming." I like that. Following an intense leg workout yesterday, I shuffled up the hill to my house. And when I say hill, no exaggeration, it is a HILL! I happened to be on the phone with a buddy as I was struggling - let's call it stumbling up the hill. I'm sure my breathing sounded like the chugging of an old-time locomotive on his end. I told him I wasn't moving quickly, but as long as one foot found it's way in front of the other toward the top, I would make it. I finished the conversation from my couch, still breathing heavily, glad the hill was behind me. (Until next time.)
This is today's message to the image in my mirror: (And maybe in it you can find some encouragement, whether you are a believer or skeptic, rock-solid or wavering, questioning, doubting, hurting, or just holding on.)
Have you lost direction? STUMBLE ON!
Have you lost strength? STUMBLE ON!
Have you lost hope? STUMBLE ON!
Have you lost joy? STUMBLE ON!
Have you lost faith? STUMBLE ON!
Our stories are being written. Now. Today. And our stories of faithful stumbling will be someone else's survival guide one day. The dance will come. For now... stumble on!
God, one shuffling step at a time, I stumble after you.
For now...
D
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