"Yeah, but I don't LIKE being weak."

This is what my closest Christian woman friend said to me tonight.

Her life clearly displays God's glory and power by my eyes. Now, all of a sudden, she's being thrown into a tough spot, where the father of her 2-year old boy, who since his birth has visited him two days a week, said "I'm done being in his life," and drove away with mom and babe standing in the driveway.

Talk about an important moment in both of their lives.

Of course this moment is hard. She knows that if she could only change a couple of things about how things are happening, she could stay on top of the stress and worry of all of this. But since she can't, it gets hard emotionally.

If only at least in theory, I love the weak moments of my life. That's where God displays the most power. Even today I had a familiar evil spirit trying to invade well-established God's turf, and I said "What are you doing showing your ugly face again? Get out of here!" Why did this happen to me yet again? Because three times Paul prayed asking to not be weak anymore, asking to conquer a weakness, and God said, "No." It keeps it real. It keeps us fresh with God. Think about this moment called "repentance":

1) realization of something being sin
2) sorry for committing it
3) feeling pain for consequences of sin, which make life ugly--hard-core regretting sin
4) forgiveness
5) putting the sin and that way of life behind you

Now out of that whole process how much time do we spend taking our sins SERIOUSLY? It's so brief. It's always too brief. Yet it is the only place that we actually NEED God to forgive us, and we get real and new and deep with God.

There is such an important witness we are all making before the demons about the truth and power of Jesus Christ by remaining in a temporally unfinished sanctified life. He gave us salvation but so far, now, only in part; the rest later. He gave us a Spirit of perfect obedience but so far, now, it abides with another sinful nature. Let the war be raged. God will win even in the details of today.

Now there are certain things in my life that I know I willfully am choosing sin, as a pattern. Then there are other things that I have asked God to give me that He hasn't given yet and I don't know if He ever will. Maybe it just takes awhile. In the case of my last post my need came to its major satisfaction almost four months after the laying out of all my cards. I just wish that others could hear once again how good God is with knowing their needs and fulfilling them powerfully. At the time I laid them out, had a lot of anguish. I felt like I was putting myself out there. Being so open about my sins to the extreme of almost being bold, really, and all the while holding the title of Christian. It's a weird place to be. I felt something akin to Moses when he said to God, "Oh Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all." (ex 22-23)

And isn't that just like our relationship to sin as children of God? As soon as we are made aware of the fact that we are supposed to be set free from a sin, our captivity in sin gets more terrible. For a season. See how Pharaoh responded to the Hebrews after the moment that they were told by Moses to hope that they could be set free? Pharaoh said, "Make the work harder for the men so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies." (ex 5:9) We will remain bound horribly, believing the lie that the truth is too good to be true, if we do not hold to our hope of freedom and a miracle, at this critical moment.

The best aide to being able to keep faith in God to deliver, even when our sins get more intense, is total depravity. Total depravity is the ultimate defensive strategy against cynicism and bitterness. A doctrine rejected by many. Rejected by the natural human spirit in the way we live our lives, the way the world functions. The world says we cannot be weak. We are trained to think we do and must have the resources within us, to rise to the challenge. Total depravity means that man is morally and willfully bankrupt to obey God in any amount, apart from His intervention of enablement.

"Whoever humbles himself will be exaulted." (matt 23:12)

SImply calculated, if we are totally incapable of delivering ourselves, or incapable to be better about not sinning, then we truly are those who magnify the Lord, waiting on Him, making bold declarations about His nature and power and goodwill. God is proclaimed. All eyes are on Him. He will act, and do so beyond what we could imagine.

"I am the Lord, and I will bring you out of the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God." (ex 6:6-7)

GOD-MADE deliverance.
GOD-MADE obedience.

This is Christianity made authentic. Where man and God are exaulted for righteous reasons, both in the same purpose.

Why are we thrown spiritually destructive, old, rotten leftover curveballs? Because deliverance is a few bold statements of faith away. These kinds of declarations are not usually even consciously made by Christians. It's hard to choose faith in God's might and compassion, as your one and only avenue of progress. But this is where His power is "perfect." (my power is made perfect in weakness 2 cor 12)

And perfection and power are my goal. It is a weird place to be, to be weak and be ok with it. But I know that when I put all my cards out on the table and don't hold back, God makes a perfect score for the object of the game.