Strength in weakness

Few things scare me more than when, after a string of nights with little sleep, I am again awake for the day before 4 a.m. and there is no health in my bones. I have been grateful to find solace in an ironic place --- God's letter to the church in Philadelphia (Revelation 2:8-11). He has the angel write: "I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and not denied my name" (v.8).

It is interesting that this church has "little strength," though all resources of strength in the universe are found in God. God could easily give them that physical girding they lack if He chose to. He does not. Nor is it that they harbor some unconfessed idolatry, for of the seven churches God addresses, only Philadelphia and Smyrna receive unqualified praise. This puts to silence, seems to me, the argument of those who would say that God's people should all look a certain way, should all be hydrants of energy, or else they are obviously mired in some sin or unbelief and forfeiting the grace that could be theirs. Philadelphia is very pleasing to God --- and it is weak.

One good thing I find about extreme physical weakness is that it eliminates confusion. That is to say, there is no possibility that physical liveliness will be mistaken for spiritual liveliness. I wonder how often in the past my physical wellbeing and enthusiasm have masked an enfeebled spiritual state. I can go a long way in Christian service on the natural endowments of personality and youth, and not even realize that I have been actually spiritually lazy, though I have appeared to others to be God's troubadour.

When I am weak, the choice about God is in my face every second --- will I trust him enough to put one foot in front of another this minute? Will I operate out of His power when I have none of my own, so that whatever comes out is clearly of Him and none of me? God commends the saints in Philadelphia because they "endure patiently" (v.10), and counsels them only to "hold on" (v.11). I wonder if the angel delivering the message is biting his fingernails.