ADMITTING WEAKNESS AND GETTING STRONG
Our good friend Valerie was in town for work and had to leave her two kids with her ex-husband. She said he was trying to recover from alcoholism, but when she spoke with him on the phone, she could tell by his slurred words that he’d been drinking. She was terrified. She told us her world was falling apart. What did I do?
We know that Jesus always has answers for every situation, but we let ourselves get swirled around in the whirlpool of the other person’s problems and get sucked down the drain of disaster with them; nobody gets helped that way. We can empathize too much and get overwhelmed ourselves.
We said we’d pray for Valerie and then she left and I felt this emptiness as I saw her walk away. I prayed for Valerie that night, but I still had a niggling feeling that things weren’t quite right with how I handled the situation. Somehow I missed something.
I didn’t realize what it was until three days later. Jesus told me what was wrong. I’m a minister, and I should have taken her outside away from other people and prayed right there. That was when she needed it.
Jesus let me know that I’d messed up big time and I needed to repent, which I did. Of course, I felt terrible, and since Valerie had already gone back home to another state, I emailed her to apologize. I’d lost the opportunity to minister to my friend at her point of need.
I thought of James 2:15-16 where it says: “If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and you say to that person, ‘God be with you! I hope you stay warm and get plenty to eat,’ but you do not give what that person needs, your words are worth nothing.” As it says in Hebrews 1:1: “NOW faith is,” not later when I get around it.
This experience was a great wake-up call for me. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. But Jesus has given us the ability to overcome our weaknesses. My strength is in my writing. My weakness is in thinking on my feet and acting immediately. But I’m determined, with Jesus’ help to change that, “redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16).
I don’t want to be “unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:17). “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake” (Rom. 13:11). “Let the weak say, I am strong” (Joel 3:10). I hope this story is helpful to you and I know we’ll all be ministering more quickly and efficiently in the love of Christ.
Love, Carolyn
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