Strength through weakness

My heart is still so full of the things of Pemba that some days I wake up & actually feel homesick.  It is hard to know what stories/lessons to share but I want them to stay fresh, and one way to make that happen is to share them :) Some of them were learned through laughter & some were learned through struggle, stretching & tears.  They are treasures to me, precious pearls that Father gave me there.  In deciding where to start, I knew that the first thing I needed to share post-Pemba was what got me through every single day there & what has continued to get me through every day thus far being home.  It is the realization in a deep deep place in my spirit that I have no ability to do ANY good thing on my own strength.  Here is what I mean…

Here in the Western world we don’t need in the physical.  I'd never been in another place for more than 2 weeks before to see what neediness feels like on a daily basis.  We think we are able to take care of ourselves out of our own strength & ability for the most part.  We work our jobs, we make money, we pay our bills, we buy our food etc.  We do much of that with out even being conscious about whose strength we are operating in.  I had no idea how many “good” things I was trying to do for the Lord out of my own strength here in America.  I wanted to love but I did it comfortably out of my own strength.  I wanted to be kind & be a good forgiver but how can you know how truly kind & forgiving you are until you meet some one who is terribly difficult to love?  Its easy to default to your own strength in places where you are comfortable & often you’ll never notice that’s what’s you’re doing.  In Pemba, however, things are different.  You have no comforts of home, no familiarities to be reassured by, little that you can claim as your own (except some dirty clothes & maybe a chocolate bon-bon but even that Father usually tells you to give away).  You are helpless on your own.  You are brought to a place of depending on others for almost everything.  Anything that was being done out of your own strength at home was revealed & that strength was proven insufficient.  I grew in this awareness as my time in Pemba progressed but the day that it broke me was the day that I woke up & , due to the conditions in Pemba & some physical issues in my body, I literally didn’t have the physical strength to lift up my mosquito net & put my feet on the floor.  I was weaker than I’ve ever felt & I had an African day ahead of me.  I had never been in such a needy place.  I’ve always had strength in myself to at least move my physical body!  I had no option but to acknowledge my weakness & call on Father to help me.  I said “Daddy I can’t even get out of the bed this morning.  Empty me of every ounce of my own strength that I’ve been trying to hold onto & fill me completely with yours.  It’s the only way I can get through this day.”  Immediately I was filled with a new sense of strength that not only got me out of the bed but that also made my joy overflow.

As life in Pemba went on I found myself praying that same prayer every single morning.  I would posture myself in humility & ask “Father empty me of every bit of myself today.  Empty me of any pride & ‘self’, empty me of any love or grace or kindness or ability to forgive that I might try to show out of my own strength & fill me with YOUR love, YOUR grace, YOUR eagerness to forgive, YOUR kindness…”  It has made all the difference in the world in how I go through my day.  I just have to stay totally empty of me & full of Him.  I feel more loving, more patient, more compassionate, more able to forgive & actually more like myself than I’ve ever felt before.  When you willingly die to yourself every day, you’re just a dead man walking & that’s the perfect place to be.  Perfectly dead to yourself, fully yielded to Jesus & falling more in love with Him by the moment.  There is so much peace & freedom that comes with that.    That’s what He wants for us- to stay completely empty of ourselves, to stay needy needy needy for Him &, because of that neediness, to receive the fullness of all that He is.  Neediness sounds contrary to what we’re taught here in the West but it is more liberating & full of joy than anything I could gain out of my own strength.  Paul says it is 2 Cor 12:9-10...

"...and he [The Lord] 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 weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong."