Looking for a New Day (Part 2)

This is part two of a three part series of posts sharing some things I have learned while seeking God through Lent.  Part one shared three insights. Part two, this blog, will be just one lesson, and part three will share lessons five and six.

Jesus is both the wisdom of God and the power of God.  In my own relationship with God, I am always attracted to the wisdom of God and it plays itself out in my life as I am constantly thinking, imagining, dreaming and strategizing…about everything. Paul, the Apostle was one of the most brilliant thinkers the world has ever known, yet the wisdom God gave him wasn’t enough.  He spoke of Jesus, the Messiah as the revelation of God’s wisdom and God’s power.  Paul’s ministry was marked by both, but God was heavy on Paul to convince the apostle to trust in divine authority over his own.  Consider these autobiographical statements from Paul:

“We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” -  2 Corinthians 1:8-9

“Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he 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. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  2 Corinthians 12:7-10

These passages are well known, yet to me they speak to me with freshness and clarity. It reminds me that I must repent of my insistence on succeeding in my own power to the neglect (rebellion?) of the power of God. 

This past season has turned my heart back to God in a way that is building my own personal dreams and hopes for 938 back upon the power of God. 

I liken it to running versus driving.  I can run and I like to run, but a car has a different kind of power.  Running is for novelty and for exercise. It would be silly to run to a destination, when I have the power of a car to take me there.  The same holds for our ambitions as a church and my ambitions for myself. Why would I run in my own strength, when I can seek God and rely upon his power?

I have found peace in resting my ambitions in prayer, surrendering my will for a day and resting instead of anxiously doing.  God made me to be a person of big dreams and ambitious drive.  That isn’t going to change. I really have come to embrace that part of me.  What I am learning is the foolishness of pursuing these dreams in my own strength. 

We have a prayer team that meets each Sunday and prays at 9:00 am to 9:30.  Would you join us then or at other times to pray for us to trust in God’s power and see it at work among us?

-Marc