Even this…
Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him!
Luke 8:25
Amy Carmichael
Even.
Is there something you are facing – whether in your outer circumstances or your inner character – that seems impossible to command? Something that has baffled you and outwitted you a thousand times, and appears that it will win over you in the end? Something as deaf to your command as the wind, or wild waters?
Don’t despair. Don’t shrug and give up.
Our Lord – your Lord and mine – can command even the most difficult, unruly thing that seems as if it will never be commanded.
Let His word ‘even’ be a comfort to you. He who commands even the winds and water [and they must obey Him] – He can say to that ‘even’ of yours, “Peace, be still…”
And there will come for you ‘a great calm’ [Mark 4:39].
…Remember that there is nothing you are asked to do in your own strength. Not the least thing, nor the greatest:
God, who is all the while supplying the impulse [to obey and to overcome], giving you the power of inner resolve [to see it through to victory], is also giving you the strength to perform [under pressure] and carry out His good pleasure. [Philippians 2:13, Way’s translation]
All the tremendous forces of nature – weather and politics and human nature too – are at the beck and call of our God. Each has only a faint shadow of the spiritual power that is His, and that He is ready to send forth for us.
Isn’t that amazing?
How utterly foolish it is to plead weakness when we – even you and I – may move into the stream of that power. If only we will…
Prayer
My Father, I choose your strength over my weakness!
For today, I will step out of the role of Lord and Judge… and I’ll strike the word ‘impossible’ from my thoughts…
Selah.
Amy Carmichael, Thou Givest – They Gather, pp. 19-20.
2 comments:
Wow. I like that a lot! I feel like that is something I should read everyday...in fact, i might print that off and do just that! It seems so much easier to believe in God calming nature, than calming us. So much easier to believe that nature is in God's control, yet we fear the reality that he is in control of us also. thanks for that!
Thanks, Jordyne! I appreciate your comments... and you've hit upon an essential paradox of human nature: 1. we easily doubt that God is really in control of our lives, and yet 2. we often fear what He might do if we gave Him more control of our lives!
ah, what a mass of contradiction is the human animal! Such contradiction caused Isaac Watts to ask, in mystery and wonder, 'Would He devote His sacred head for such a worm as I?'
Some have objected to Watts' use of that word 'worm,' and yet it captures one truth of the human condition! the other truth, of course, is that we are created in the very Image of God.
And that He deigns to call us sons and daughters of grace!
Prayer: O God, when I get too high, remind me of my worm condition. And dear Lord, when I get too low, remind me that I am created in your very Image, and that you love to call me your child! And... help me ever to remember, that you control even this, in love: even me, in all my mystery! Thank you for your awesome love, and thank you for this day, this very day! In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
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