God has used various means to show me my need for him, but it was health collapse that most forcefully pushed me to confront my destitute state. It was a long year at the bottom of an ocean of suffering. My resurrection was no over-night affair. Two years of halting efforts finally resulted in an embrace of this destitute reality. If I were totally honest, I still haven’t come to full grips with it.
But there is no doubt that my year of suffering was one of the best things that ever happened to me. And I’m still convinced that suffering might be the best thing that ever happens to you, but only if you embrace destitution and your deep need. We need this recognition to revise our vision.
Metaphorically speaking, this revised vision makes us smaller. The rest of the world seems bent on bloating their egos and bulking up in every way possible like a toad. In the end, however, it is the small who win. Their lives are not weighed down and they are able to fly farther and faster in life. A toad is still a toad, hopping from lily pad to lily pad, but neediness makes us like birds, able to cover the world.
One of the smallest, most over-looked birds in the world is the Bobolink. What a great name? It’s plumage is nothing special and neither is its song. But that bird can fly farther and longer than any other bird, even farther than the B52s with the massive wingspan.
All exercises that make us smaller, especially prayer, serve us in the long run. Our spiritual flight is more exhilarating and our progress more substantial than those of the pruning peacocks or lumpy toads we used to be.
Paul was destitute and would have it no other way: “If I must boast, let it be in the things that show my weakness.” In this he was imitating Christ, our older brother, and knew the benefits of doing so: “For though he [Christ] was crucified through weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power that works within us.”
Let us boast in our weakness and reclaim the power of God that works mightily within us. Let us live and, therefore, fly like Bobolinks.
benpalpant.com – life re-imagined
