“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

(2 Corinthians 12:9)

This verse comes to mind as I pray on the dock

I think I understand the first part of that verse

Thankfully it is grace alone that saves me

Grace that rescues

Not my work or effort

But how can his power be made perfect in weakness?

Isn’t his power perfect already?

I think God paints his power

Against the canvas of our weakness

Like a light shows up more clearly in the nighttime

Than the day

Last night was the Fourth of July

And a few neighbors lit their fireworks

Before the sun went down

We wondered why

Were they impatient?

Trying to work around children’s bedtimes?

The explosion of color against blue was the same strength

As the ones that would explode into the night

All around the lake

But the darkness of night

Made the lights that much more wondrous

That much more beautiful

When we are faced with our own weakness

Our own inability to solve a problem

When we stand at the shore of the Red Sea

With an army at our backs

Knowing only He can part the water

That’s so often when He moves

When waters part

His power above

Even the rules of physics he created

Nothing good I have

Not my marriage, my children, my job

Not this cottage

Were anything I earned

I didn’t pay for the new cottage to be built on the site of the old one

Didn’t work a lifetime to save up for this place

It does not belong to me

And yet, we get to enjoy it as if it were ours

Jonathan’s parents delighting in getting it ready for us

I consider how easily I could have ended up

Married to a different kind of man

We could have had children who brought us grief, not joy

We could have had no place like this to come

The peace of this place so present

It is almost a physical thing

So why do I allow myself to worry

Anxiety creeping in

There is no sickness

No job loss

No broken relationship

Outside of the scope of his power

And he is not a distant god

He who wept at death

Who loves us better than we even know how to love

His goodness exceeds

Every poem and song and psalm ever written

So good

He delights to give good gifts to his children

Calls us sons and daughters

Slow to anger, abounding in love

His mercies new every morning

He loves us because

He IS love

He is good to us because

He IS goodness

In Him is no darkness at all

We are not alone

And He is not late in keeping his promises

His timing so much better than mine

Left up to me,

I’d want the answer now

Like fireworks shot off in the daytime,

But he knows they will mean more in the dark

When the brightness of His light

Is beautiful to behold

Sometimes perhaps we need to come to the end of ourselves

Having spent all night fishing like the disciples

Catching nothing

When he tells us to go out once again

And we catch a net FULL of fish

If we had caught a few fish right away

We would have missed the miracle

His extravagant goodness

When Abby comes into my room late at night

After work

Just as I am about to nod off to sleep

I turn on the light and talk for as long as she wants

These moments precious

She is NEVER an interruption to me

Would that we could see God like that

We are not an interruption to his important work

We are his cherished children

And his grace is more than enough