Our Source of Strength

Write From My Heart

August 8, 2020

Our Source of Strength

2 Corinthians 4:7-9 (NLT)

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.

            Most of us are quick to acknowledge that God is our source of strength. Yet the reality is that all too often we still try to manage on our own, then question when it doesn’t work. The plain and simple truth is that without God our power is only temporary, and quite ineffective for long-term peace. Perhaps that’s why I like this analogy Paul writes to the Corinthians. Try to grasp the picture in your mind:

            You have the light of Christ in your heart. You are a shining light! Yet, physically, you are just a human vessel—basically the same ingredients as that of clay. In many ways you, we, are fragile. Some of us may be fragile with our thoughts and mental acuities; memory doesn’t work the way we wish it would. Some of us may be fragile in our emotional lives; we never seem to get a break from the emotional roller coaster in life. Others may be fragile physically with the complications of health or aging; there are too many examples to list them all.

            In spite of all these distressing and perplexing complications we call “life,” you STILL have the light of Christ in your heart, and you STILL shine because God is the source of your power and strength. We can’t avoid the complications in life, and we never will until he returns. But we can still shine!