Press the arrow to listen to Hillsong sing “Desert Song” while reading today’s devotion about weaknesses. If you have time the story behind the song is touching.
Scripture
For God has deprived [the ostrich] of wisdom.
He has given her no understanding.
But whenever she jumps up to run,
she passes the swiftest horse with its rider. Job 39:17-18
Observation
God has woven adequacy and inadequacy into all that he has made, including me. The Creator chose the ostrich to make his point. The grandest and swiftest of all birds is a messy housekeeper and lays her future children out in the open plain. Yet enter that same ostrich into the Kentucky Derby and she would finish first. She is a combination of strength and weakness like the rest of us.
God shows his wisdom in making me a combination of adequate and inadequate. Both show his glory. My adequacy reveals the Lord’s strength through me, and that pleases him to see it flourish. But my inadequacy also pleases him because if I use it rightly it causes me to depend on him. My weakness somehow endears me to the Lord, for it draws us close. He uses my strengths but he glories in my weaknesses.
Application
To thrive in the human experience, I need to become as comfortable with my inadequacies as the Lord is. Often I want to cover them up, but weakness becomes more useful when acknowledged. Last night I met with a volunteer team to work on a future project. Someone put up a hand and pointed out a glaring oversight. In that moment I had a choice that all humans face: do I explain away my shortcomings or do I embrace them and learn from them? I don’t want to be an ostrich with my head in the sand, so I said, “You are right. We missed it. Thank you for your insight. I’ll put that on the list.”
If I can become more comfortable with my inadequacies in God’s presence, I think others will be more comfortable with me, and themselves. We need the Lord and we need each other, if only we can get out of the way and let ourselves be served.
Prayer
Father, I come to you just as I am: an unfinished project. I lean on you and learn from you in the leaning. Amen.
