2 Corinthians 4:7 NLT
We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
When I was a kid I was Arsenal mad (still am a bit!). In 1971 they won the Double. Someone gave me a mug that commemorated that triumph. I used it daily. [I managed to find a picture of one from the Internet - mine is no more!]
One day mum told me, sadly, that she had knocked it on the floor and broken it. It was in pieces. "I'll get you another Arsenal mug", she said. But I wanted the one that celebrated that victory.
Unbeknown to me, my dad got the pieces and, painstakingly, stuck it back together. It was never as whole, but it still, unerringly, retold that Arsenal had won the Double in 1971!
As I grow older with aches and pains knocking on my door, I'm reminded what a weak vessel I am.
It's not hard to identify with the verse for today. In fact, in so many ways, I feel cracked and broken.
Life breaks us on so many different levels, right now I recall a deep, dark depression suddenly engulfing me back in 1991.
Up until then I had looked down my nose a little on the depressed. Secretly I thought: "pull yourself together".
Yet, finding myself abruptly overwhelmed with a blanket of the wearisome futility of my life, I was left floundering.
Psalm 69:1-3 NLT says it perfectly:
Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck.
Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire;
I can’t find a foothold.
I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me.
I had to experience that darkness in order to relate to others.
Looking back, I can recall many I could share with, because of that episode.
As hard as it was at the time, it became a blessing of weakness.
I was broken by that, but the Lord put me back together again. Like that old, cracked Arsenal mug, I can still tell of the victory of Jesus on the cross, the empty tomb and His everlasting life, freely offered to us.
So let's not be afraid to offer our brokenness to Jesus. Let Him lovingly put us back together and see how His light can shine so much brighter in us!
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