A MOST CHALLENGING PARADOX

God.  Us.  Harmonious partners.  Huh?

I know of nothing stranger than trying to picture God and me as legitimate partners.  This does take faith.  And for you?

How are we to get this into our minds when God is invisible, immeasurable, and so perfectly holy that we should/could go blind at the thought?  And we are teammates?

Because this paradox is most challenging, I fear too many opt out in the name of modesty.  Who can blame us?  Yet, God works within the actual body of Jesus; the church.  This is us!

Adequacy isn't ours to possess...II Cor. 3:4-5.  It is to possess us.  Confidence (His) fills the inadequate (us)....and off to work we bounce!  Earthen vessels are we and gifts of His are they....and off to work we charge!

I believe that the secret to becoming more than we are, yet that which we dream, is to surrender rather than build momentum.  It is to believe in God; not ourselves.  We keep, though, trying to gear ourselves up for reasonable effective participation....and it just isn't going to happen.

I think back on major moves during my tenure in the kingdom....

• Moving off to preaching school when everyone knew I couldn't cut it.
• Moving from security in Quincy, IL. by accepting a work way over my head at Memorial Drive.
• Repeatedly clashing toe to toe with a group of men who could fire me at moment's notice for they had already practiced on the man before me.
• Realizing power is truly perfected in weakness and, if such were true, I was one of the most powerful people ever to roam earth.  I am to this day both example and poster-child of extreme and foolish lack.
• Concluding without a shadow of doubt that I am a certifiable nobody and such is precisely who God uses. 

What a paradoxical pattern.  Hardly the hallway to effectiveness according to man.  I think the reason mediocrity plagues us is we won't bow.  Maintenance of image is coveted.  No one is of any account unless Jesus is the resider and provider.  We can't start nor can we stop a good work which is kingdom alive unless we surrenderingly rely on the God of all grace.

Too much grace?  Ummm, not yet.  Too much worry, too much defensiveness, too much self-reliance perhaps.....but not too much grace.  Grace is God's talent; His supply.  We are gifted.  Yes, we are.  But we must continually remember that He alone is the Gifter.

Fitting us into God's sandals will always be a challenging paradox.