Struck Down, But Not Destroyed

Read: 2 Corinthians 4: 4-15

I’m on Facebook regularly these days, and I’m finding people being buried alive with homework. The pressures that come from school, from extracurricular activities, from various responsibilities, they all just build up and you feel like you’re going to be crushed mercilessly from all the weight of your obligations and responsibilities.

Oftentimes, the response would be along the lines of :( . I really feel bad for many of you, especially since this is happening to you in high school. I remember my fall semester of my senior year at Wheaton College when I took the 4 hardest classes in my majors. I had no choice - they only offered the classes at that time, see? And as if God were playing a terrible joke on me, all 4 classes had 2 midterms and finals... and they all fell on the same Fridays of the semester. I remember how hopeless it all seemed. But during that time, I was forced to rely on God to lend me his strength. What a great time for me to know about the God that is greater than my real analysis exam?

And that’s what Paul’s encouraging us to see things when everything is pressing us from all sides. We are supposed to be reflectors of His glory. And what better way to show that than for our lives to reveal that, despite our inherent weaknesses, God can use us in mighty ways?

As the Protestant Reformation began to gain ground in Europe, Martin Luther was caught in a similar trap. He was (1) being hunted down for being a heretic, but (2) also needed to provide visible leadership to a new Church that was emerging, and (3) had to convince the German princes and regional leaders that the new Church is not heretical and is worthy of support. In the middle of all his busy-ness and frustrations, he wrote in his journal, “Work, work, work, from six in the morning to midnight today. Today is such a busy day, I will spend the first three hours of my day in prayer.”

Martin Luther is such an example to us because he understood that despite the frailties of the human body, and despite the fact that we often find ourselves hard-pressed on every side of life, it is in our weakness and desperation that God can do marvelous things. Luther, as many of you know through AP Euro, went through years of agonizing over how he is a sinner in the hands of a really angry God. But through the agonizing, he found salvation after reading about God’s love and grace. Through Luther, the Bible was translated into German, and so excellent was the translation that Germans today still use his translation.

So in times when we are pressured on many fronts, let us not despair, but look to the God who is our strength, and He may show the world his strength in our weakness. Spend time reflecting, especially those of you who seem to be buried in lots of work and stuff. Pray that in your moment of weakness, God will be your strength.