Feeling Fragile? This One's For You

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I love how sometimes God just plops a verse in my head and says, “Here. Think on this for a while.”
 
Lately, the verse I’ve been pondering is 2 Corinthians 4:7-9:

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”


I don’t know about you, but as 2020 continues, I’m feeling as fragile as a clay jar—one wrong move and I’m shattered. Crumbled into a thousand pieces.

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The headlines certainly don’t help.
 
Unrest. Violence. Killing (both by force and by words).
 
Sickness. Disease. Discord.
 
Loneliness. Despair. Uncertainty.
 
It’s best for my heart to stay away from the news.
 
Further, clinical research suggests that incidences of depression and anxiety are three times higher than they were just one year ago. Not twice as high, but THREE TIMES. That’s huge!
 
Not that I want to stick my head in the sand, but goodness! . . . maybe I will.

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Here’s what encourages my heart today: none of this takes God by surprise. He is not losing sleep, wondering how it’s all going to work out. He’s already worked it out. And he knows what we’re going through here on earth.
 
Here’s the reality of our earthly experience, the one that God himself knows intimately. We are . . .

  • hard pressed on every side

  • perplexed

  • persecuted

  • struck down 

Are you feeling the pressure of these uncertain days? Confused? Oppressed? Up against road blocks?
 
Haven’t we all, in one way or another, felt like this at some point in 2020?
 
I’m encouraged to know that we aren’t the first people to experience tribulation—the early church was up against incredible pressure to conform, to leave behind everything they knew to be true about Christ and to put their trust in earthly leaders. As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, there really is nothing new under the sun.
 
I know more than one parent who has questioned what to do about school this year. I know those who have lost income and others who have felt the pressure of living out their faith in the midst of very difficult circumstances.
 
Our earthly bodies feel keenly the weight of what Paul describes.
 
But these verses don’t stop with describing our situation here on earth; they also describe our situation in the Lord. Even though our circumstances feel hard, with God on our side we are . . .

  • not crushed

  • not in despair

  • not abandoned

  • not destroyed

Yes, 2020 feels bleak at times, but our circumstances do not dictate the end of the story. Not even close. With God, we have hope.
 
And one more thing. That clay jar—the fragility we feel—it’s supposed to be that way. It’s no accident. God made us frail for a reason—so that HIS all-surpassing power would take center stage.

Friend, whether you are heading into Fall feeling like you’ve got this or like you don’t know what tomorrow will bring, do this one thing: hope in Christ alone. It is His power that you need, not your own (because, really, you have none). He will never abandon you. He will never leave you. He is always with you, taking those thousand pieces of broken clay, putting them back together, and forming them into a new image.
 
And once those cracks have been repaired? They are stronger than ever.