Amy Tindell “I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit.” Ephesians 3:16 NLT
Limitless
The word that God has impressed upon me for this year (or however long it lasts) is the word limitless. From the moment I embraced that word, God has made it pretty clear that it has nothing to do with my limitless ability. If anything, God keeps showing me more and more of my own limits. I’m talking about His limitlessness. As I read Ephesians 3:16 this morning, God reminded me of this again.
Let’s face it. We’ve all experienced exhaustion. In years past, it was when I spent 2-3 traveling nonstop to or from somewhere like Africa (with jetlag). A friend of mine compared it to the last night of a 5-day Disney World vacation with 6 kids and grandparents. I sometimes call it the “my body is made of lead” exhaustion where even your eyelids feel like they weigh a ton, and you can fall asleep almost anywhere.
Life Limits
Over the last year or so, I’ve experienced more of these days, only without the excuse of travel or activity. I know some of you can relate. Over the last 24 hours, I’ve gone from doing laundry and finishing a 10-mile bike ride to crawling to the couch to sleep while the kids watch a movie. Simple things like feeding the kids and the pets in the house seem impossible at those moments.
We Find Our Value in Strength
Even if you don’t experience this kind of exhaustion, chances are you strive for strength. We all do. We exercise to strengthen our muscles. We take vitamins to strengthen our immune system. We practice perfecting whatever skills we value. Just one look at the top movies released this year shows that we value strength and power.
We want to be the strongest and the best. We want to win and to have others respect our strengths. Weakness has little value in our society. Yet Jesus used children and sheep (two very weak creatures) to show how we must come to Him. We have to acknowledge our strength has limits, especially when it comes to what matters to God.
Inner Strength
The Apostle Paul noted that physical strength has some value (1 Timothy 4:8), but there’s another type of strength that’s more important. There is an inner spiritual strength that can only come from God. This is the strength God offers in limitless amounts if we are willing to accept it.
Yet even though it’s given freely, it can be hard to accept. Gaining physical strength takes discipline, pain, and time. Inner strength is no different. It’s embraced through painful experiences, God’s discipline, plans that fall apart, failures, loss, and grief. It’s easy to say, “I want that limitless inner strength”, but we never truly understand the challenges that lead us to that place of inner strength until we get there. I honestly think if God showed us up front what was required, every single one of us would turn around and walk away.
When I picture inner peace, there’s one person who specifically comes to my mind. She was a missionary and had lost a child while serving overseas. Her husband died years before her, and she was battling cancer. It’s through those experiences that God gave her that inner strength. There were no complaints the times we spoke, but I knew there was not much I could go through that she couldn’t relate to in some way. It was peaceful talking to her, like nothing the world could throw at her would crush her spirit.
John Ortberg wrote in “The Life You’ve Always Wanted“, “Suffering alone does not produce perseverance, only suffering that is endured somehow in faith.”
Inner strength is built on persevering through trials while clinging to God, and ultimately gratitude for the trials. It’s a foreign concept to many people and an unreachable goal for all if it weren’t for the work of God.
The Challenge
I’m honestly not sure how I got to Ephesians this morning, because my Bible study started in Job. If there was ever a man in the Bible who embraced that limitless inner strength from God, it would have to be Job. No matter how much life hurt and how discouraged he became, he was able to say, “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) That is true inner strength.
Accepting the inner strength that God offers through the Holy Spirit is honestly a little scary. I want that inner strength, but do I really have what it takes to embrace it? No, just like that inner strength comes from God, so does everything else I need to gain it. Just like last night, when I had no physical strength or ability to move off the couch, I also have no inner strength or ability to handle anything life throws my way.
The pain and difficulties in life will come. Will I accept them with God’s unlimited gift of inner strength, or will I walk away bitter and defeated? That is my challenge to live limitlessly.
