Glorious Weakness By Alia JoySample

The Glory of the Beloved

Are any of us really so different from the disciples? How often will we see the face of God in our midst, the miracles, the hand of our Savior reaching toward us in the squall, ransoming us, the stone rolled away, and still we forget. I am three rooster crows cackling in the wind before I remember what it is to know Jesus.

Our growth isn’t linear, it’s circular. It bends back on itself and overlaps in ridged swirls and curves. We aren’t marching forward on a timeline so much as we’re adding rings to our core like aged oak, firming up roots, breaking bark raw, the shedding of ancient skins, limbs reaching and stretching and yearning for light. We are grafted into a family tree far beyond what we ever imagine. 

The world expects you to grow forward, march down a timeline. Do more, be more, have more. Then you will see the hand of God and his blessings. If you are #blessed, you’ve traded in your beater car for a luxury SUV, your one-bedroom apartment and a roommate for a soul mate and a four-bedroom house with walk-in closets situated in a nice neighborhood with good schools. We are a culture of upgrades—always moving forward, moving upward.

But God is not about upward mobility so much as inward expansion. God’s kingdom lives in the ever-widening rings, the core and the hollows. God’s kingdom growth starts in the dark and hidden places, in holy ground. In a seed busted open and yearning.

Suffering will visit us all; grief makes its home both among us and in us. We revisit our humanity, our frailty, our weakness. We keep company with sadness. We learn the lament of everyone who holds quietly to the knowing: things are not as they should be. 

And still we hope. Still we see our Redeemer come. We bear witness to the goodness of God in the most unlikely places. He is our all in all—we know this from the desperate spaces when we had nothing else. No other route, no calmer sea, no other choice but surrender. And this is a gift. We are becoming fluent in the language of hope.  My weakness made strong in Christ—that is our glorious weakness.

Spend time confessing to Christ what makes you feel weak, unseen, or devalued. Ask Him to enter and touch these places inside of you.