Friday: I’ve Always Had Tasks I Couldn’t Do
WEEK 24
FRIDAY
I’VE ALWAYS HAD TASKS I COULDN’T DO
Ephesians 3:20-21
We are meditating on the discovery of your resources after the Holy Spirit comes within. Not before. If you try to discover your resources before God moves within, you will discover just what has been discovered in depth psychology: conflict, hidden motives, contradictory urges. But once you are surrendered and receive the Holy Spirit, then that inner chaos becomes cosmos. After the wrong is cleansed away, even the imperfect good is in the process of being made into the perfect good.
“In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness” (Rom 8:26)—not merely our wickedness but our weakness. Our weaknesses throw us back on grace so that our very weaknesses serve us—serve to link us with Almightiness. Those who feel their own adequacies never turn to grace. But those who feel their own inadequacies constantly turn to the Spirit’s adequacy. They are bound to, for there is no other open door. People have asked me what is the secret of my life. I have invariably replied, “If there is any secret, it is in these two things: I have kept my prayer life intact, and I’ve always had tasks I couldn’t do.”
I knew I couldn’t do them; they were too big for my inadequacies. So I’ve offered my inadequacies to God by surrender and have taken God’s Adequacy by receptivity. It is so simple and effective. A very influential woman had put on her tombstone: “She hath done what she couldn’t.” Well, that’s me! I’ve done what I couldn’t, and knew I couldn’t, so I’ve learned to take grace with both hands. When I’ve stood before kings and governors and hostile audiences and learned skeptics, I’ve expected God to press the right button within me to give the right answers and to say the right thing. And God always does it to the degree I’ve depended upon God. “When they bring you before the synagogues, rulers, and authorities, don’t worry about how to defend yourself or what you should say. The Holy Spirit will tell you at that very moment what you must say” (Luke 12:11-12). That has been my verse, given years ago, and it has worked—always!
O Lord God, I thank you that I need not live in fretful inadequacy but in fruitful Adequacy. I can live on grace and more grace and therefore always adequate. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: God will press the right button within me today in every situation.