Jesus said He would use the weak to lead the strong.
There's a problem I have when I struggle with my sin, I don't want anyone else to help me carry my burdens. I don't want to be "that person" who throws a pity party and wants all the attention on them. I'd rather no one know about it and seem like I'm doing fine. I've been trained to be strong and independent.
Unfortunatly training the strong starts in the local church. You walk into the service and people want to shake you hand or hug you and they all smile and ask, "How are you?" They're all so happy and so nice and so so busy! I could never condemn them for it, for aren't we called to be a grateful and joyful people? Still, we are also called to suffer with those who are suffering, to weep with those who weep, and mourn with the mouners. But the mourners are silent because everyone else is smiling.
I need to be more weak, because then Jesus is strong and He gets the glory.
There's a problem I have when I struggle with my sin, I don't want anyone else to help me carry my burdens. I don't want to be "that person" who throws a pity party and wants all the attention on them. I'd rather no one know about it and seem like I'm doing fine. I've been trained to be strong and independent.
Unfortunatly training the strong starts in the local church. You walk into the service and people want to shake you hand or hug you and they all smile and ask, "How are you?" They're all so happy and so nice and so so busy! I could never condemn them for it, for aren't we called to be a grateful and joyful people? Still, we are also called to suffer with those who are suffering, to weep with those who weep, and mourn with the mouners. But the mourners are silent because everyone else is smiling.
There's no room for their sorrow in a cheerful room. There's no room for real hurting people in a room full of fake smiles.
I don't excuse myself from my own responisbility. If you want to see a change happen, you have to be the one to start it. And being silent is not the only way I see myself pretending to be strong, instead of embracing weakness. It's just as hard in times of joy to embrace weakness.
When you're on the other side of the spectrum, you're the one feeling joy and smiling and hugging and hanshaking everyone in sight. You feel like you're going a million miles an hour and nothing can stop the overflow of the Spirit. Somewhere in the midst of your high mountain top experience you find yourself crashing into the reality that you aren't praising God anymore, you're all about praising yourself.
It's no longer the oy of the Lord that drives you at this point. You become blind to the fact that you were really only promoting yourself. Every friend who came to you in need you gave cliche answers of how they could fix it themselves. You begin to forget how to weep with them and plead with them.
I pray you don't read this and feel I'm trying to call out the church and point the finger. I've been both individuals in the past week alone and I'm just as guilty as the next Christian. What I mean to say is this:
Why can't we just be the weak?
The strong don't have compassion, the strong have all the answers, they point hte finger and never listen (and I mean genuinly listen) to the weak. Because they are better.
But the strong are the blind, because they aren't really strong. They're the weak and they aren't really willing to see it.
The weak have issues. They can't get it right and they never will, but really they don't need to. The weak actually need Jesus and are desperate every day (they don't just tell other people that). The weak weep. When joy comes, they're grateful. When friends suffer they suffer with them. They pray.
I need to be more weak, because then Jesus is strong and He gets the glory.
Chelsy.
