As a teacher, I sometimes struggle with the haunting thought: “What if my students face a future test and they fail because I have not adequately prepared them?”
I’m always thinking ahead, trying to anticipate what my students may face or deal with in their school years ahead, because the thought of them depending upon me to prepare them and me failing them in that preparation is crushing to my soul. They trust me to teach them what they need to know, and the weight of that responsibility often reminds me of my own inadequacies. And that is a good thing to be reminded of.
I used to feel like I could conquer the world. I used to feel like I had a lot to offer God. I used to be full of strength and fire and passion for ministry, and for a long time I just assumed my strength, fire and passion was of the Holy Spirit. But the Lord had to teach me that all that strength, fire and passion was my own and not His. And for Him to teach me that, I had to be emptied. And that has been a very hard school indeed.
The quality of our fruitfulness in service to the Lord is proportionate to our recognition of our inadequacy. The more we understand our utter and complete dependency upon God for all things— and I do mean all—the more He will pour of Himself into our recognized lack. Austin-Sparks states, “..the more spiritual growth and maturity takes place in us, the deeper will be our consciousness of utter dependence upon God for everything in the realm of our relationship with Him.”
Therefore, when I face my own inadequacy to fulfill my calling, I am reminded of the One Who will be faithful to make me adequate. And that is a good thing to be reminded of.
(2 Cor 12:9,10) But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
(2 Cor 3:5,6) Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
(2 Cor 4:7,11) Now we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this surpassingly great power is from God and not from us…For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may also be revealed in our mortal body.
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