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Not by might nor by power
By: Pastor Peter Schlicht
In college I played cornerback for the Knights of Martin Luther College. We were in the middle of a one-sided game with Northwestern College where, at halftime, we found ourselves down three touchdowns. One of those touchdowns had been scored by #80, the receiver I had been assigned to cover. During the break, one of our coaches came over to the defensive backs and asked if there should be any changes to our assignments. I had to speak up. “Coach, #80 is too fast for me. I need safety cover.” My coach responded, “He’s too fast for you? With that mentality, you’ll never cover him! You can do it!” However, speed is not a matter of mentality, but physicality. It was an impossible assignment. No changes were made and #80 scored two more touchdowns over me that day.
Have you ever felt like you’re stuck in an impossible situation? Not one as trivial as a football game, but something more substantial. Maybe you feel inadequate faced with the work placed in front of you. Maybe there is a certain person in your life who is continually causing you grief, but you need to keep dealing with them. Perhaps school has gotten harder and while others around you succeed, the lessons you have missed start piling up until you feel hopelessly lost. Maybe your child is struggling right now and you feel helpless on the sideline. Maybe the responsibilities of life, the problems of the past, and the uncertainty of the future are swirling into some terrible storm that seems futile to fight against.
The theology of this world would tell you, “You can do it! Just believe in yourself!” But you know that some of these things are simply out of your control. There are problems that do not dissolve with a good mentality or a determined will, no matter how hard you might try.
The theology of the cross, however, leads us somewhere else. It leads us to despair of ourselves and it recognizes that anything that accomplishes this in us—even if it seems bad to us at the time—is a loving cross, given by God for our eternal good. A loving Jesus has asked us to take up our specific cross, designed to shape us in just the right way, and follow him.
Could it be that you are trying to set down the cross he custom-designed for you? I’m not sure about you, but I have no trouble identifying crosses in my life. It’s recognizing that my cross is designed by a loving God and carrying it joyfully behind my Savior that I struggle with.
You may observe that the hardest times in life seem to coincide with the times when our prayer and worship life has ebbed. It’s not that God is punishing us for our lack of devotional piety, but the absence of it hampers our ability to meet adversity with faith and rejoice in sufferings. God puts his people in situations that test their faith, test their joy, test their trust in his Word. But he does so to strengthen us, to mold us into the servants that he wants. That is what makes our crosses so good.
So when the potter presses his hands into you, run to his Word. Look upon the terrible cross of Christ, which forgave the sins of the world, and know that there is a loving purpose behind your own cross as well. Trust that if the Lord allowed this difficulty to come into your life, he will supply the strength and patience to endure it. Join together with brothers and sisters, lean on your Lord and offer a prayer to the God who still speaks words of peace and hope.
