"His strength made perfect in my weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).
In an earlier time period I feared the murder of myself and children, of being unjustly adjudicated in the courts, of poverty, of abandonment by church and family, of isolation, marginalization, utter failure, and mostly, the loss of my soul – and while all these fears were founded, by God's miraculous and merciful design, they were not all fully realized.
However, neither fear of things, nor the things themselves, are ever outside the hand of God. In the darkest of times God teaches His people to let go of everything as they believe it is, should be, or can be, to embrace the pain of devastating predicaments that God rules or over-rules for their benefit. It is in life's darkest hours that God's people are blessed with the deepest, most poignant and painful understanding of their utter weakness in order to discover the strength of Christ.
During that time God teaches His people...
to fear nothing but sin,
run through against a troop,
leap over a wall,
stand unafraid on treacherous ground,
bask in the light of Higher places,
and use wisdom before war.
All because God is our strength and His way is perfect. (adapted from Psalm 18)
God allows the imagined strength and control His people, to drive them into devastating predicaments, like a ship into a narrow channel. There, by Grace, God shows His strength.
