Principle 7: Weak is the New Strong

So there I was, laying on the ice, not daring to move any more than wiggling my toes. That partly to keep the circulation going and partly to reassure myself that they still worked. I knew from the pain in my lower back that any unnecessary movement could have catastrophic consequences. Meanwhile my friends are on the ice next to me needing medical attention. One complains of trouble breathing, another is confused and disoriented. Ashley's not a complainer so she doesn't say much, but when I lift the blankets to see her face, I see a lot of blood and pain written all over it and I can tell she's worse off than me. As Eric hobbles around, he manages to keep us all warm, but he soon realizes that if he gets down to help someone, he's not getting up again. 

How am I feeling in this moment? Grateful to be alive? Yes, but also totally helpless, weak, useless. I have first aid training but I couldn't use any of it. I was totally dependent on someone coming to help with zero ability to help anyone else. 

The next three days brought lots of laying flat on my back unable to even sit up or roll onto my side. Pro-tip: if you're going to break your back, don't do it on a Friday because you have to wait for all the doctors to be "in the office" on Monday to decide what to do with you. Thankfully, they had a good plan and surgery went well. But then I got what sounded a little like a sentence to imprisonment. No lifting, bending, or twisting for 3 months, 1 year of recovery, lift no more than a gallon of milk. What does all that spell? Weakness... I'm going to be useless for a long time. 

But then there's Paul...

"If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness." (II Cor 11:30)

Gee, thanks a lot Paul, now I have to re-think everything...

When Paul says this, he's in the middle of a battle to re-claim credibility with the Corinthian church as their founding apostle. It seems that some "super apostles" had come in with fancy speeches, leaning on the conventional wisdom that "you get what you pay for" mocked Paul for his free teaching. While they claimed to be important people, Paul makes his defense by saying he could foolishly match all their worldly claims to fame, but instead he chooses to boast in his weaknesses. 

In II Cor 11:23-29 Paul goes on to "boast" about how he has been a manual laborer, a convict and nearly died multiple times. He appears to be extremely accident prone and it seems like nearly everyone wants to kill him. Then, to top off his resume, he has extensive experience being cold, naked, and anxious. 

He goes on to explain that he could boast in his incredible revelations from God, but no; God put a "thorn in his flesh" to teach him that, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." "Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why for Christs's sake, I delight in weaknesses , in insults in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties, for when I am weak, then I am strong." (II Cor 12:9-10)

So I guess that means, not only do I have to re-think the meaning of my weakness, but also my feelings about it. How dare Paul delight in his hardships!

So how exactly is God's power made perfect in my weakness? I don't know. But what I do know is that although Paul's resume may have been a little sketchy, he was one of the most successful church planter / evangelists of all time. As an apostle of Christ,  He is a foundation stone of the Church as it exists today. Why? Because of his weakness. 

So I choose to look forward to seeing what God can do through my current state of helplessness. It aught to be a good show. 

Principle 6: Prayer is a Gift

 

As we prepared and planned for our trip to Levelock, Pastor Luke presented it to the church saying, "This is an 'all church' missions trip." That is to say, there are ways for everyone to be involved even though only a few will be going. One of the main ways that he suggested people be involved was through prayer. Now, I don't know about you but I'm guilty of hearing that kind of thing in many situations over the years and thinking, "Ah, I see how it is, I've been relegated to the bottom rung of the ladder where, 'All we can do is pray.'" 

However, this is clearly not how Paul viewed the gift of prayer in his second letter to the Corinthian Church. In 1:8 Paul reflects on his time in Asia when he was under such intense affliction that he gave up hope of living through it. But then he goes on to recognize the purpose of all of it in vs. 9. 

Indeed we felt as if the sentence of death had been passed against us, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in the God who raises the dead. He delivered us from so great a risk of death, and he will deliver us. We have set our hope on him that he will deliver us yet again, 

So, through this near death experience, Paul and his companions got to learn what it meant to depend on the God who is capable of resurrection in a situation in which he absolutely could not control the outcome. He learned to put his hope in the deliverance of God both then and in the future. What does Paul attribute this miraculous rescue and spiritual lesson to? The prayers of the Corinthians and many others. 

As you also join in helping us by prayer, so that many people may give thanks to God on our behalf  for the gracious gift given to us through the help of many.

I never really had  chance to despair of life itself, but had I been able to see the ice coming at me in the few seconds of our rapid decent, I probably would have. But meanwhile, my church is praying and I know from experience, one of the most popular prayers out here in the bush is for safe travels. So thanks to that gift, miraculously, we survived impact. 

As I lay there on the ice for hours waiting for rescue, I could take comfort in knowing, there were shockwaves of prayer requests reverberating across the globe. 

As the story unfolded in the next few days, we learned that there was a divinely placed Alaska State Trooper who was responsible for making very difficult decision about how our rescue would go down. He asked for prayer and in minutes before the deadline the best case scenario plays out on the scene as rescue squadrons arrive. 

Another memory that sticks in my mind is being wheeled out of my hospital room on the way to surgery and there is one of my fellow passengers, Eric, he had hobbled over from his room on a broken ankle and camped outside waiting for me since he wasn't allowed in. The one thing he was able to say as I passed by, "People all over the world are praying for you."

I don't take the gift of prayer for granted anymore. I used to see prayer teams as support personnel and the pastors, and missionaries and such were the real "combatants" in our battle against the spiritual forces. But after a few years of being involved in spiritual warfare, I've come to see it differently. The prayer warriors are the Navy, the artillery, and the Air-force bringing the spiritual bombardment on the enemy and when the "infantry" shows up, it's to clean up the mess.

So thank you to the thousands who offered your gifts of prayer. The Lord heard you and spared our lives and our legs. Because of you, we are walking / hobbling and talking today. But please bear in mind that while we are grateful for our physical salvation, the reason we were out there in the first place remains. It's the reason I gladly took the risk of the trip and plan to do it again. The thousands of Alaskans who are stuck in despair and spiritual darkness, and need the hope that we already have in Jesus Christ. Would you join me in launching a spiritual bombardment against the forces evil that would like to destroy our villages? This weekend over a hundred people are coming to our camp here in Port Alsworth for Spring Family Conference. Would you pray that Jesus would rescue those who are lost and whose faith has been shipwrecked, like you prayed for me?