God of Strength

I'm a runner. As a runner, I sometimes do very stupid things to my body. And when I have finished doing stupid things to my body, I spend a few days in agony. During those few days of agony - after a long race, after a long run, after a personal best - it can be hard to even make my legs work at all. 

Then, all of a sudden, I can stand again. And then walk. And then run. 

(And then, true to being a runner, I decide that that was fun, and I'd do it all over again if given the chance.) 

In the Bible, it was common for men of God to fall down when overcome with the holiness of the Lord. They'd become overwhelmed by the presence of God, or by their own fallenness in the shadow of His righteousness, and they'd hit the ground. Face first. Unable to lift their heads or to look up. 

Such a thing happened to Ezekiel, the prophet. Then, the Spirit of God showed up and made Him stand (3:24). 

God helped him to his feet. He made the man stand again. He put his legs back under him. As Hebrews says, the Spirit made him to "stand firm on weak knees." 

But that's what the Spirit of God does. 

Like a runner who puts in the training to be able to do a long run and then somehow walk again, persons of faith put in the training to be able to lean on the Spirit of God when their own strength fails them.

It comes through Bible study, through reading God's word, through ingesting the stories, through knowing the heart of Him who wrote every word. 

It comes through prayer, learning to hear His voice and learning how to speak in your own, leaning into the silences and the little nagging feelings that you can't quite shake because you know they're God's nudgings. 

It comes through the fellowship of believers, gathering together to encourage and strengthen one another, to share in the knowledge and goodness of God, to break bread, and to build community. 

And then, one day, we're knocked down, overwhelmed by the world, by the holiness of the Lord, by the contrast between who we are (how far we have fallen) and who God is, and suddenly, we're on our faces. Unable to stand. Unable to lift our heads and look up. 

For a moment, we stay there, but not long. Because it doesn't take long for all the things we know about God - His word, His voice, His Spirit, His love - to strengthen our legs and lift us up, helping us to our feet so that we are strong enough to stand once more, even on weak knees. 

When it's all said and done, we decide...this is fun. I'd do this again if given the chance. 

And this pattern becomes our lives - falling, being strengthened, standing, only to fall again and engage it all over as the Spirit of God keeps coming back to us again and again and again.