It takes humility to allow yourself to be broken and weak while standing on the world's stage. You step up on that stage with trembling knees and shaking hands. You must make a choice to wear nothing but the truth of the life that you live or a costume and mask, a scripted version of what you want the world to believe about your life. Good acting is hard work and requires great effort to maintain the outward persona you've chosen.
The audience of this world craves an entertaining, moving, and convincing performance. In the culture of humanity, the broken and weak are fodder for the predator. Like gladiator games at the Coliseum, the powerless are thrown into the ring and sacrificed for sport. We pray that we are not one of the poor slobs thrown to the lions in the savage arena of public opinion.
But broken and weak is what we are. Remove the masks and the costumes and we all stand in the center stage spotlight trembling at the ability of the world to see the truth about ourselves, our failures, our fears. Our life is critiqued like a one-act play and we all desire a good review.
This human tendency to need the favor of public opinion, or just the approval of those in our closest circle, makes it difficult to understand the words of Jesus. Jesus said to Paul, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9 NLT). Jesus stepped down from eternity and put on humanity so that he could be Immanuel, God With Us. He experienced the fatigue and hardship of life. He suffered, cried, loved, and laughed.
Jesus became one with us so that he could take the burden of being human, weak, and broken upon himself. Now that he has risen in the power of life over death, he lives with power inside our spirits, still united with our human frailty, but in his strength.
Jesus said we are the light of the world. Because... he is in us and we are in him. Jesus said he would never leave us or abandon us. Because...by his Spirit, he is in us and we are in him. Jesus said to let our light shine. Because... he is the light within us that shines through us into a dark world.
When we take our turn on the stage of life and we put on our costumes, makeup, and masks, we hide the light within us because of our fear. We are afraid of being known as we truly are- broken and weak vessels, jars of clay, carrying the precious presence of Jesus onto the world stage with us.
It takes humility to walk onto the world stage in nothing but brokenness and weakness. It takes faith and trust to walk in humility, believing that Jesus in us and through us is greater than the weakness and brokenness of our hearts and minds.
Go out and take your place on the world stage. Be humble and stand in everything that is broken and messy about your life. You carry within you the light of the world, the hope of eternity, the power of God. Jesus in you and through you is the light in the darkness, the hope to the hopeless, and the power of eternity to those without God.
His power is made perfect in our weakness.
Copyright @ TA Boland 2021
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