“My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
My faith looks up to claim that touch divine,
Which robs me of this fatal strength of mine,
And leaves me resting wholly, Lord, on Thine.
Yes, make me such an one as Thou canst bless,
Meet for Thy use through very helplessness;
Thine, only Thine, the glory of success.
The path of strength . . . is the being made sensible of our own weakness, so that divine strength, which will never be a supplement of flesh’s strength, may come in.
That self should feel itself nothing . . . is a most divine work.
Where shall we find strength for practical separation to God, unless in God Himself?
The nothingness and incompetency of all flesh must be felt where it would be disposed to think itself competent. It must find its pretensions arrested and set aside when it has . . . such; it must find itself consciously weak where it might hope to be strong or capable of something. As to what self would lean on, it must find itself a hindering flesh where it would pretend to be a helping one. . . . We must be humbled when we are not humble or in danger of not being so.
Our very helplessness is our resource. We find that God Himself must come in because we can do nothing.
We need God’s power to be little.
He refreshes the spirit and raises above weakness and pain. . . . Think much on Jesus (I do not mean as if you could think much in your weak state, but looking to Him), and lean on Him as a sick child lies in its mother’s arms, because it has no strength — not because it can do much.
It is a great deal . . . to get the knowledge of self — one’s total want of strength . . . to know enough of “I” to be glad to get rid of it. This is the process of Romans 7. Peace by progress . . . so as to be content with self is found to be impossible. . . . In the following chapter the way of deliverance is unfolded. Here only the Deliverer is named, and the truth is brought out that the deliverance is complete and immediate, and only thankfulness remains for us. . . . “I thank God”: a deep and wonderful change . . . the soul occupied with God instead of self and occupied with Him in thanksgiving.
How hard it is to receive that the work of God and of His Christ is always in weakness! The rulers of the people saw in Peter and John unlearned and ignorant men. . . . The thorn in the flesh made Paul despised, and he conceived it would be better if that were gone. . . . It is God’s rule of action, if we may so say, to choose weak things. Everything must rest on God’s power; otherwise God’s work cannot be done according to His mind. . . . For the work of God we must be weak, that the strength may be of God, and that work will last when all the earth shall be moved away.
I am accused of letting things take their own course too much. Still, it seems to me that I trust in God that the work is His own. If I can help in that work, it is a favor which He confers on me, but I think that often, when we wish to guide and govern too much, faith is wanting.
H