Fear NotSample

God's Strength Will Be Shown in My Weakness When you are stressed, two agendas compete in your heart. One is Satan's. He will try to spin your hardships, especially economic hardships, as proof that God is incompetent. Or weak. Or senile. Or absent. Or dead. Or that he has given up on you, loves you no more and probably never did, and you are left alone to languish in your struggles. The other agenda is God's. It is a great surprise as you grow in your Christian faith to discover that God gets his loving and saving plans accomplished not only by giving us things but also by taking things away. He blesses us both with pleasures and with hardships. St. Paul knew both bounty and privation, and he had learned to see God at work in both scenarios. He had learned to be thankful for his easy days. But he had learned also the value of drawing strength from God when he was empty. "That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10). When you are empty, you can watch God make a way out of no way. You can watch the miracle of manna, miracle bread, reenacted before you. You can accept his hardships as antimaterialism therapy. You can celebrate his just-in-time providing of everything you need. Ahem. Need.