This morning I felt….weak. Well….tired and weak. Children were loud when I was still sleeping, my responsibility is to keep 3 young children quiet when daddy is also sleeping after being on night shift. And I’d stayed up late with work myself. The children let a cat in after I’d scolded them for being loud…they were ‘making’ breakfast and dropped dishes. Just…I wasn’t ready. And I needed my coffee. More importantly I needed to wake up and not be a horrible haggard mom that I felt like being.
I admittedly have wonderful children, and as I was slowly waking up and drinking my coffee (these are not the same thing) I was trying to do some Bible reading as well. I don’t have a set reading I do when I’m enjoying my coffee, and a kid’s song was playing “Strengthen me….” and I thought…yeah, that’s what I need. Strengthening. So I looked in my concordance about ‘strengthen’ and read Isaiah 40:10
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
That’s what I needed, a power-verse for this kind of morning.
But I kept going…and my study took a different somewhat unexpected direction (a reason I strongly recommend spending some time reading directly out of the Bible, because I feel God sees how we are struggling and gives us direction, but then can also point us in ways that we need correction.) Concordances are lovely thing; also under the heading ‘strengthen’ was the verse Hebrews 12:12; I’m familiar with Hebrews but couldn’t think about a ‘strengthen’ verse in Hebrews. So I turned…”Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 12 ‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.” Well….this wasn’t the direction I was wanting to take…I wanted to be strengthened, not strengthen myself. What was the context (don’t forget when studying the Bible to look around what you’re reading…another reason I strongly recommend studying from an actual book). [See my other post about reading from your Bible]. So I looked at the beginning of Chapter 12
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus….”
Hebrews 12:1
Ok….so, strengthen ourselves for our race before us. Alright…I guess after God strengthens me I also need to go forward and strengthen my…feeble arms and weak knees? I’m an athlete so….ok, this makes sense.
But there are verses between these two sections…I kept reading. 4 “In your struggle against sin….5 “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves…” and then 11 “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Wait….so verse twelve is indeed about us…strengthening…ourselves. Look at Verse 7 now “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons…” So, we are facing hardships, which should be seen as a means of discipline because that is how we strengthen ourselves.
And hardships can take on many forms….like my children making far more noise (still) than they need to be (I pray my husband is still sleeping…I don’t dare look). But underlying is the fact that my heart is wearied….a pandemic is spreading to my area, how do I keep us safe??? Have you read Hebrews 11? What do we know it as? The Faith chapter, of course. This should ‘strengthen’ me through these hardships, right? God will ‘strengthen’ me? But remember the hardships that are allowed to be present for me to strengthen MYSELF? When was the last time you read Hebrews 11:34-38? “….Others were tortured and refused to be released….” Whoa, what? I learned this as a feel-good, God can turn back armies and raise from the dead chapter! Why are you doing this God!? I wanted a feel-good, you’re-going-to-make-me-a-better-mom devotional!
Because some days we need to look at how to strengthen, discipline ourselves. God says many times that He is our strength, that we can do everything through Him (Philippians 4:13). He will supply for our needs (Philippians 4:19). And as we wrote above in Isaiah. Which means this strengthening we are to do for ourselves is done through the power of Christ. But it is work that we….I…must do. I said I’m an athlete. Does that mean I enjoy practicing? (to a certain extent…gotta get these kinks worked out of my muscles even yet this morning). But to truly train, to truly discipline my body, it means it will be WORK. Remember in Hebrews 12:11 ‘no discipline seems pleasant at the time’ even when we’re strengthening ourselves we identify it as work, as hardship, as pain even. But we are to endure it as making ourselves stronger, better, more fit to run the race, more fit to better our parenting style, more fit to be the supportive and anchoring spouse….more fit for God’s purpose for us.
Wow, I’m so glad that God says He’ll help me….through this strengthening. Now…to put my exercise clothes on and start training…and hug my kids. With God’s strength…I’ve got this.
