As the old saying goes, it’s easy to lose sight of the forest by
looking at the trees. Most of us get so wrapped up in the
day-to-day world that we confuse making a living with making a
life.
As the old saying goes, it’s easy to lose sight of the forest by looking at the trees. Most of us get so wrapped up in the day-to-day world that we confuse making a living with making a life.
For the past several weeks we’ve been looking at some basic principles that will help us remember the bigger issues of life.
One of the most important principles to learn and implement in our life is the fact that honesty liberates us.
I like the way author Steve Brown once stated this principle: “Demons die in the light!”
Remember how when you were a kid going to bed and seeing monsters in the darkness of your bedroom? What made the demons disappear? Turning on the light.
Most of us outgrow imagining monsters in the dark, but few of us can honestly say we have no secrets hidden in the recesses of our heart.
After Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, there were some there who harbored a great deal of animosity toward him. Satan wanted to use this anger to destroy Paul’s ministry in Corinth, but Paul, knowing this, wrote a second letter in which he honestly shared not only the good things in his ministry, but the worst as well:
“We should like you to know something of the trouble we went through in Asia. At that time we were completely overwhelmed, the burden was more than we could bear, in fact we told ourselves that this was the end” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).
Why did Paul share his troubles? Many Christians feel that’s the last thing you should do. After all, aren’t you supposed to put up a good front as an example for others? Yes, if you want to model hypocrisy and teach people to fake it.
Many of us have decided that we must pretend that everything is OK in our life, but herein lies a great danger: the things we keep inside and deny to others begin to control us.
Fredrich Buechner, in his book “Telling Secrets,” talks about his father’s suicide and his daughter’s anorexia, two of his family’s unspoken tragedies. He said something very profound – that when we tell our secrets they lose much of their power over us.
This echoes what God tells us in James 5:16, “Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
Another key principle of life flows from our willingness to admit our shortcomings: God’s power in my life is made complete in my weakness.
Paul learned this the hard way. In 2 Corinthians 12 he talks about how God allowed him to experience pain in order to teach him that life is to be lived in God’s grace rather than in the power of his own strengths and abilities.
Once he learned that lesson, he said, “Now I take my limitations in stride; I am glad to have my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may work through me. Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, accidents, opposition and bad breaks. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Ever notice how the Bible rarely says what you think it will say? After all, doesn’t the Bible say somewhere that “God helps those who help themselves?” No, it doesn’t.
What it says is that God helps those who can’t help themselves and admit it. You and I need to admit our weaknesses to God, ourselves, and others.
I’m weak in so many areas and often fear people will find out that I am not nearly as smart or spiritual or good as they think I am. How about you?
When you know and admit you are weak and far from perfect; when you know there is nothing in you to commend yourself to God; when you are convinced that you have so many weaknesses that there is no way God could use you… get ready, because you’re exactly the kind of person God will use.
