Be Strong In The Lord

By |Published On: September 10, 2020|Categories: 4-Minute Radio Program|
A scene from above a forest with a mountain range in the background with the sun setting behind it.

I love to share hope through every hardship. 

Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada, and I trust that the hopeful words I say here on this program encourage you through your hardshipsBecause we all need helpLike the other morning when my two girlfriends were assisting me in getting dressed, getting up and out of bedinto my wheelchairBefore they strapped on my corset – that’s a tight, surgical support garment I wear around my middle in order to help me breathe and sit up straightWe always pray before they strap it on meAnd so, still lying in bed, I closed my eyes and prayed – here’s what I prayed: “O God, Im an empty bowlI am so very emptyAnd I need you to fill me.” Boy, did I mean that prayerIt wasn’t as though my bowl were empty. No, I was saying, I’m the bowl; I am emptyI just don’t have weakness; I am weakI just don’t wrestle with pride; I am proudI don’t just sin; I’m a sinner. 

NowGod already knows this, but what makes prayer powerful this way is when we know itWhen we admit what were made ofEspecially before others; confessing who we really are to others, like my two friends standing over me, on either side of my bed. I want them to know Joni Eareckson Tada needs help; she’s a sinner. And when we plead our weakness, it binds us closer to our Christian friendsIt also gets rid of sin’s deceitfulness – we can be so easily fooled into thinking that we are, indeed, the paragons of virtue we often project to others. 

Charles Spurgeon once wrote, We are strong when we are weak because we gain our strength by prayer, and our weakness is our best argument in supplicationWhen you are engaged in prayer, plead your strength, and you will get nothing; [but] plead your weakness, and you will prevailThere is no better plea with Divine love than weakness and pain; nothing can so prevail with the great heart of God as for your heart to faint and swoonThe man whofeels all the while as if he could not pray, and yet must pray  he is the man who will see the desire of his soulDo not mothers always care most for the tiniest child, or for that one [who] is most sick?our weakness holds God’s strength, and leads him to bow his omnipotence to [your] rescuewhen I am weak, I am sure to flee to God forhelpIt is wonderful how strong a man feels in such a hiding-placeWhen you cannot lay a stone, and cannot lift a trowel by yourself, then you may begin to build for God, for he will make you a worker together with him, your feebleness will be linked to the eternal strength, and then the wall will rise with speedSo, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.’…let us be perfectly content to decreasethat our Lord may gloriously increase.” 

Friend, you may be an empty bowl todayYou may feel bare and vacant and hollowDull and enfeebledYou might be feeling very weak with nothing to offerYou may, like I said, you may be a broken, empty bowl. But please remember, remember that before God, your weakness is your best platformIf you plead your strength before the Lord, you will fail; you’lget nothingNo graceNo powerAnd most sadly, no favor from JesusSo today, link your emptiness to God’s eternal strength, and watch what he will doThese are good words for you today if, like me, you feel like an empty bowlThe Bible says time and again, when we are weak, he is strongLive that way todayAnd youll have hope to see you through every hardship. 

© Joni and Friends 

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