“When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.
Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.
And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.
May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.
Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
Ephesians 3:14-19
Where do you find your strength? Where are your resources stored?
Personally after travelling in my own strength and coming to the end of it I’ve discovered that there is soo much more power available in the reality of God’s love, in particular love and care for my kids. My oldest son Jake is an amazing boy with plenty of creative and unique characteristics, however he can (as all growing lads evidence) also be quite trying. One day I came home and found all my tools scattered over our newly tiled floor as Jake was rifling through them trying to find something. Fortunately for him there were only scratches as a result of his exploration (and no chips!). Also fortunate for him my back was still sore after bending over for 2 days laying them! I was soo angry and it took all of my rapidly depleting strength to keep it together!
Gee in those times when we are angry and empty it can be difficult to find the reservoirs of love repeatedly alluded to in Scripture.
For me the telling signs of tiredness and exhaustion are critical words and retreating to my “comfort zones” ie the couch. To go to Gods word and recover strength by waiting on Him is the aim…the reality is that it seems (at times) that this takes more energy than slumming it in those comfort zones. Yet the end result is always the same- emptiness when the show’s finished, emptiness when the bottle’s empty, emptiness when the best that the world has to offer runs dry.
Roots that extend into God’s love is the answer to living out of the overflow. I get the image of a tap that’s turned on and gushing water streams out into a cup…when the cups full the water doesn’t stop! The tap doesn’t turn off it just keeps going and going. God’s love is endless. It’s everlasting, refreshing and filling.
May you find your strength in the eternal source of life – God’s overwhelming and overflowing love!
God bless, Dan
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