Strength Equal!
Sunday’s children’s choir musical, “Go, Go, Jonah,” was filled with enthusiasm and joy and young lives offering their gifts to the glory of God! The morning was also filled with great words of encouragement from the lyrics presented. Some days we can’t help but be “down in the mouth” – discouraged by life’s events or our hearts’ struggles. But on those days there is good news to be had – good news from the children’s choir’s voices, viz. for whatever happens to us we can count on God’s grace to meet us there. Our children sang:
“Oh, there’s nowhere that You’re (God) not here loving me.”
“And you’re liable to be lost without it ‘cause most of all the Bible is a book of love.”
“The Father, the Son, and the Spirit in you are bigger and better than ‘ol ‘you know who!’”
These lyrics from the songs brought us great encouragement for those “down in the mouth of a whale” kind of days! God’s love meets us where we are, and in what we are facing, and he is able to “raise you up and place your feet on higher ground!” Yes, God’s strength is what we need to face the day!
Back in 19th century New England, Phillips Brooks was the pastor of Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Brooks, who wrote the text of the carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, was a renowned preacher of his day. He once challenged his congregation in a sermon saying,
“O do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger people! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be the miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God.”
Yes, there are many and varied challenges we must face in life, and they are often NOT easy. As Christ Followers, we know that by the Holy Spirit Jesus continues to live in us so that we experience the miracle of his grace to see us through what is before us. As John wrote to the early church so can we boldly declare, “The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). And, as Paul proclaimed to the
Colossian church, “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves” (Colossians 1:13). That being so, because of God’s work in our lives, we live within his Kingdom’s power which supplies our strength for the days that are before us, as discouraging as they may sometimes be. This strength is equal to our tasks, and it positions us to be the people God intends for us to be in the world and thus to be the kinds of witnesses God expects of us, the kind of witnesses that embrace the wideness of God’s mercy which we share with our neighbors – a lesson Jonah finally heard, and one which we are to daily live. God be with us as we pray daily for this strength to lead the way.
In the Love of Jesus,
Tony Tench