It’s not ideal, ringing in the new year with illness. The flu and a common cold has wreaked havoc on our family beginning in the final hours of 2015, holding us back still 2 days into 2016.
My great expectations to start a new year with strength and momentum failed miserably.
But I am realizing something profound: sick days are better backdrops for Gods strength and momentum in 2016.
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV
Failed resolutions, unmet expectations, have already speckled the landscape of 2016 for all of us who:
- Indulged in the Christmas cookies we swore off for January
- Didn’t make it to the gym yet
- Glanced once more at that image-site we know dishonors God
- Fell back into gossip
- Sacrificed another hour to Facebook
- Have yet to clean out that closet
- Are still haunted by a dusty goal from 2014
Whether it’s the weather or a sickness or a neglected resolution that has made you feel a failure, allow this weakness to do it’s great work in you. This bent helps us to recognize His greatness, His potential, His faithfulness, His getting-everything-right-EVERY-TIME! He offers this perfection to us in Christ.
Those of us who have accepted Christ as our Savior get to experience the exchange of our weakness for His Ecxellence in our very identity. And it is when we see our weakness again, it helps us to recognize His greatness, giving us perspective of humility, gratitude, and confidence.
That’s the SYMOTA I am reaching for this year: His power made perfect in my weakness.
As a family we ended up spending our sick days reading books, watching movies, and live streaming the Passion Conference.
Instead of getting my house clean for the new year, I watched my toddler son drum his little hands to the beat of songs that magnify Jesus’ power.
Instead of getting in the work-out I’ve been pining for, I sang and danced alongside the chirps of my 1 year old daughter with the words: FOREVER HE IS GLORIFIED!
Originally, I had intended to avoid Facebook; but the sick day had me checking “memories” which brought up a picture of us watching the passion conference 1 year ago. God met me in the middle of my weakness, my failure, to draw me to celebrate His strength. I was intent on bitterness, God was intent on being glorified.
Hallelujah, He is Alive! And because if that, so am I. Happy New Year!