Do you sometimes turn your head sideways at the way God does stuff? Am I the only one who finds himself not only asking God why, but also, “Huh?”
I wish I could say this only happens every now and then, but it happens a lot.
Lately, my daughter’s cat has been yowling (it’s a word – feel free to look it up – I’ll wait) a lot because he’s a boy cat and, well, there are some girl cats walking around outside our house who have gotten his attention. The nonstop yowling has had me saying, “Huh?” to the One who created cats with the ability to make such a loud, obnoxious sound.
I’m not writing this about boy and girl cats and how girl cats can drive boy cats crazy, who then drive the humans in the house where the boy cat lives crazy. Really. That’s not the point, even though it’s definitely something I’ll be talking to God about until all the yowling dies down.
The thing that really makes me wonder abut God is how often He actually asks us to do things that seem impossible. It can’t be an accident because, you know, He’s God, which means that He intentionally sets things in motion that reveal our weakness. Huh?
When I was preparing for goals that I would work toward in 2023, I made a goal to write and post to the blog once a week. Every Tuesday, I’ll write something and post it, and then everyone can read it and share it.
Except that God also clearly told me to get off social media at the beginning of the year.
Huh?
How am I supposed to get the word out about all the fantastic things I’m writing and posting if I can’t go on social media and tell people that I just posted something fantastic that they need to read?
Even as I wrote that last, admittedly long run-on sentence, I felt like God was answering the question.
“Paul, is what you’re writing more life-changing than the gospel? Or than the Word made flesh? Did I have any trouble getting that message out without social media? Did Jesus need Twitter? Or Facebook? Or…”
No. No. No. No. No.
And another no to whatever question He mercifully decided not to ask.
Good news like God sending His Son to live among us so that we could live with Him forever gets out. You and I are living proof because we’ve heard the good news that has been going viral for millennia without the technology that is only a couple of decades old now.
He doesn’t need it to get the word out.
Come to think of it, He doesn’t need us to get the word out, either. But He chooses to use us.
He wants to use a guy like me to share a message like that? A guy who can barely keep his heart-rate under control when the cat starts yowling? That guy?
Huh? Why would such a great God use people like me and you? Because people need His power, and our weakness is often the perfect vessel for it.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9, emphasis mine)
This isn’t about sin. This isn’t about laziness. This isn’t about doing the absolute minimum for God and hoping to get the maximum blessing from God.
This is about recognizing that a big part of our journey with Jesus is designed to reveal the areas where we feel weak, exposed, vulnerable, and, well, human, so that the world can relate to our condition while also seeing the strong, healing, protecting, and super-human power of God in us.
The power of a perfect God is made perfect – the Greek word actually means complete or finished – in our weakness. No wonder Paul finished that verse by saying that he would boast all the more about his weakness.
We can, too. We don’t have to run from the things that God does that make us feel weak. He’s not a mean God Who wants to expose our weaknesses to humiliate us.
He’s a gracious God Who wants to reveal His power to heal us.
