Is there a pony in here?

We arrived home safely after our trip to the west coast, but extremely tired, even to the point of feeling weak and slightly ill. I slept nine hours! This morning I woke up with a different sense of weakness. A few things happened here while we were gone that should not have happened, at least in my mind. Two of these negatives filled me with that “what’s the use” attitude of wanting to give up. Why bother trying to do good for others when they keep handing back negatives?

There is nothing I can do to fix it and this stuff costs me time and energy. It digs into my wallet and seems inevitable. I fell like I’m on a slippery slope toward a black hole and while I’m trying to help others who are in that hole, it seems that they are bent on pulling me in with them.

I’m a pessimist by nature and wish I could be more like the kid in the story about the huge manure pile. He is shoveling like a fiend and when asked why, he says, “There has to be a pony in here someplace!”

Instead, I think about my options and am depressed. I cannot stop doing well in obedience to God. I cannot retaliate to make myself feel better about some of these negatives. I cannot even scream and yell, not because I don’t want to, but because the Lord is not giving me that freedom. A good cry might help, but it will only vent my sense of helplessness, not take it away. Even digging for the pony seems impossible; I’ve no energy and no shovel.

Today’s devotional reading takes me to 2 Corinthians 12:9. Ouch! Do I want to be reminded that Paul had handicaps too? Whatever his “thorn in the flesh” was, it made him feel weak and unable. Maybe this was a physical problem, but it could have been a continual temptation or an emotional shortcoming. He asked God to remove it three times, and three times got the same answer. NO.

“And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Paul realized that the very thing that he thought should be removed was part of God’s plan to make him more powerful in ministry, not less. Instead of feeling like he was on a slippery slope, he knew God was holding him in that place by the power of Christ. He also knew that God’s power would be demonstrated in his life to the people he was trying to help. He found the pony.

Sometimes I’m glad to read this verse. No one likes to feel weak, but if weakness is the perfecting ground for God’s strength, then it is not a bad thing. Today I am not so sure that I wanted this reminder. This sense of helplessness is worse than anything prior. Instead of just weakness, it’s more like being down in that manure pile and kicked while I’m down. Being told that it is a good thing isn’t making me feel encouraged. I’m too close to a pity-party.

I think also of yesterday’s admonition to abide in Christ, and not being too sure what that looks like. Now on top of it, I’m reminded that it will most likely look and feel the opposite of that “wonderful dwelling place” idea that I was thinking about.

Instead, it will be more like the experience of Jesus who was “despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” and from whom people hid their faces. He was “despised and we did not esteem Him . . . He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3-4) and was “in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Today’s reading affirms it. The author asks, “Do you not think, that if we are to learn our weakness, we must learn it in the same way? . . . . If we are to learn the secret of Christ’s strength, it is NOT by making daily advances in fleshly holiness, and getting stronger in self day by day. It is NOT by old nature being so mended and improved . . . to be shaded off into grace, just as the colors in the rainbow are so harmoniously blended that you can scarcely tell where the one ends and the other begins.”

He adds that we learn Christ’s strength by being buffeted by Satan’s messenger, and thus being beaten out of my own strength, I will find Christ’s strength made perfect in my weakness. So far there is no pony in sight; I can only smell it.