I am utterly exhausted. At least, I hope I am. Because it appears that God has been waiting for me to get to this point for a long time.
"God is waiting for your store of strength to be utterly exhausted before He can deliver you. Once you have ceased to struggle, He will do everything." -- Watchman Nee, Sit, Walk, Stand
Ha! Cease to struggle. My first thought when I read that, with all my caregiving lately, was of trying to change a squirming toddler's poopy diaper. They want you to, yet they don't want you to. They don't realize that if they would just stop thrashing around, it would go much faster. Again, Watchman Nee writes:
"A drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself." -- Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life
Yes, I have felt like I was drowning lately, completely overwhelmed. But ceasing to struggle is the hard part for someone like me, who was raised and trained to believe that it was all up to me. That if I don't do it – and that "it" usually means something wonderful – everything will fall apart. People will be hurt. The whole world will disintegrate – and it will all be my fault. Ceasing to struggle and handing it all over to God is very scary, and up to this point, unthinkable.
But a loving God brings us to the end of ourselves so that we will finally cease the struggle, be still, and fall into his loving arms. And God has made it very clear to me that "ceasing to struggle" is what he wants me to do. Not only because I just can't go on, but with numerous quotes, and prayers, and loving advice that has come my way. I am sharing with you some of them. THANK YOU so much to my fellow bloggers from whom many of these have come.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26
"This verse talks of two distinct failings; that is the body and the courage of the heart. In my recollection the body fails first and drains the strength within until the tank is empty, there are no more miles left in the motor. When your courage tank is empty tears are never far away, and the realisation that you have tried to cope on your own strength when you should have been depending on Father God. In today's verse the psalmist in trouble proclaims "God is the strength of my heart"; the Rock upon which he rests securely and finds courage." -- Alan Kearns, His Strength in Our Weakness
"What spurs you on in that journey into love is actually the constant experience of your own lack of love: your impatience, irritation, or self-centeredness ... You will have them until the end of your life. They allow you to love God and others by reason of a Larger Love flowing through you, not because 'you' are doing it right or even know how to love!" (Richard Rohr, A Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations, p. 364) -- blogged by Carole Duff, Strive to be other-centered, strive to be planted, strive to grow
"Here's one amazing truth about the gospel that runs counter to every other religion: the needier you are, the more perfect you are for Jesus. There are no self-made Christians. There are only needy people who collapse at the feet of Jesus and let him lift them up." -- David McLemore, Matthew 11:28-30 | Come to Jesus
"It is when we sink down in utter helplessness that the everlasting God will reveal Himself in His power, and that our hearts will learn to trust God alone." -- Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender
"May I speak frankly to you that God's verdict is, you are unable. He concludes you are not able because He knows you through and through." -- Watchman Nee, Life that wins
And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. Rather, He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. Acts 17:25
"There is nowhere where God is not and no way God can be contained—by imperfection, by time, or by space." -- Kevin DeYoung, Theological Primer: Divine Infinity
"The Lord doesn't need us to do things for him; he wants us to do things with him." -- Don White, Doubts
"Grant us to feel that without Thee we can do nothing—a feeling not of cowardly dependence but a feeling of hopeful strength, in the happy assurance that Thou art powerful among the weak." -- Søren Kierkegaard, The Prayers of Kierkegaard, prayer 46
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26
Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! Psalm 46:10 (ESV)
Image by Andrés Nieto Porras https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nuevas_aficiones_%287984692236%29.jpg
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