plenty of hills to climb

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what is God asking of me? in that place of resistance in me that says ‘i don’t want to do this. i don’t want to be powerless. i don’t want to be stripped of my reputation. i don’t want this. i want nothing to do with this, God.’

and in the quietness of that honesty, God comes with his tenderness and his compassion and i can only say that in the most gentle of ways he says to me, “then sweetheart you want nothing to do with me because that is what i did, and, if we think about Thomas, that is what I do. as i sit with my scars and my holes, carrying human flesh even now to bring human and divine together in the mysterious, wonderful, insane strategy of God.”

but you know what else he whispers? he says, “wendy you’re united with christ. you have fellowship with my spirit. you are grounded in my love. will that be enough? wait for me to ask things of you. they will be a weird and wacky mystery, but they will be powerful even as they seem powerless.”

the people who do the programs and have the cool stuff have testimonies of all the salvations…and the people that are living incarnationally, identifying with, becoming the poor - we don’t have testimonies. this week was just bloody hard. our testimony is that we didn’t give up this week. that was our good news. that is our fruit. we didn’t give up this week. i wish i could paint this in a much rosier way for you.

the posture of powerlessness means identifying with the powerless. identifying with the one who is voiceless and alone. what does it mean when it seems like it is not going to bear any fruit? but in the spirit of Jesus we are asked to endure and to remain. in the trust and the confidence that if we are faithful to do what God has asked us to do, that in the mystery of God’s strategy, fruit will be born in the right time.

allow the spirit of God to whisper “look how i’m transforming you.” choose to remain because even though we can’t dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, the way of powerlessness is the strategy of an all-enduring God.

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the power of powerlessness, wendy gritter