Thursday, August 11, 2011
Trust The Limp
MMI:
Our limps are not just lessons for us.
Jacob got his name changed at the climax of the pressures he had been living with. God forced him to face his character issues. He carried a limp after that, as a reminder of the Lord’s severe mercies. But he also carried more of the favor of God.I think this is right, but here's my question - the world does not typically "honor" limps in this way. We tend to like our leaders flawless. Hence most in ministry professionally that I know, if they are not using ministry to hide form their limps, hide their limp from everybody else. Problem is, this valuable lesson never then gets passed on.
God was not only birthing a nation through the man, He was making the man a demonstration of the process He uses to make His servants fruitful. Fruitfulness usually must take place inwardly before God risks doing much with us outwardly. And fruitfulness, among other things, is a product of brokenness.
I don’t really trust a man who doesn’t have a limp somewhere. If you haven’t been through some storms, failures, and persecutions, I wonder if anyone really knows what you’re made of? If there’s not brokenness, there’s very little room for God’s pure power to be understood and demonstrated.
I think this is why Paul said, “For this reason I delight in persecutions, trials, afflictions….For when I am weak then I am strong…” 2 Cor 12. He understood what I call “the law of acknowledged weakness”.
Paul definitely walked with a limp!
Our limps are not just lessons for us.
Technorati Tags:ministry, limps
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator
