Strength in Weakness

4/7/14              Jose              20

I received a text that a church brother was at the park, greatly distressed and in need of good counsel and a listening ear so I headed over to find him.  To keep our conversation confidential I’ll just say that as a young man and believer he has been struggling and beat down with a family health situation that would be difficult at best for even the most mature Christian, and the pressure had built up until he could bear it no longer.  I’m glad to say he chose to turn to God for his strength rather than to bitterness, and he confided in myself and another brother who met us there and received counsel, even though the difficult situation continues.  One thing that is hard about his circumstances is to keep from a self-centered victim mentality, forgetting that other people have difficulties too, even if they often pale by comparison.  I’ve counseled this brother before, and this time decided to do something different.  I invited him to walk with me around the park to reach out to others with the Gospel.  We would purposely pray for and focus on other people rather than his own problems for a time.  He was hesitant at first, but the change I saw, after just two conversations, one of which he joined in, was dramatic.  Instead of being just the object of prayer he was praying for others.  Instead of having a victim mentality he was thinking of how he could help others.  He counseled and encouraged Jose, a young man we met.  He had a mission.  He was being used by God.  We talked about his mission as a husband and a father.  I think he felt empowered.  I think that’s the way we are supposed to feel. We don’t have to wait until we personally “have it all together” before we begin reaching out to others.  Maybe that’s what Paul meant when he wrote “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But 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. That 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 Cor.12)