Power or Weakness?

I started to slip into "pity-party" mode this morning on my way into work.  But as my thoughts started to go that way I heard a verse on the radio that was playing in the background of my thoughts.  The verse reached out and grabbed me and pulled me back>  The verse was 2 Cor 12:9 - "...power is perfected in weakness." 

Immediately I was filled with the most explicable peace and the assuarance that this thing is not too big for my G-d.  My life and fate are in His hands and I am so glad that He has the controls.

But in looking at this verse in context, there is a lot more that can be understood and there are other applications. 

I have undergone true deliverance in my life and I can tell you that deliverance is a process.  I have rarely exerpienced deliverance as an immediate and overnight occurance.  My experience with deliverance took many turns and struggles.  A lot of them mental,but our minds are very powerful - they can affect our physiological being.  In my experience there was a true dying to self to get to the point that I had to recognize the power of G-d in my life to exact change within myself.  G-d did not tap me on the head with some sort of "magic wand" to take away my struggle.  Rather, He made me so aware of what "grace" means.  Grace is the power to do G-d's will.  I had to put that power in motion.

Much like a weapon is poweful it does not become poweful by just sitting on a surface next to you.  It becomes powerful when it is picked up and the trigger pulled.  Grace is the same way.  It has to be put into motion by applying it.  I had to determine within myself to stop doing the thing I was working to be delivered from.  The power was mine and given to me by G-d but the execution of that power/grace came from the very strength G-d gave me and required me to do something.

This gives clarification to this verse in 2 Corinthians 12:9 - He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." 

For me, I needed deliverance from jealousy.  It is a long story but I knew the precise moment when the demon of jealousy jumped on my back.  And it really did seem like I had the proverberial "monkey on my back" controlling my thoughts and actions.  I had to defeat those demons and the demonic power waged against me.  The demon attached itself to me through unforgiveness but once it did, it required a strength and determination I never experienced before.  It required almost 10 years of constant struggle, defeat, repentance, prayers, fasting, and finally "grace in motion."  It was a process of change and did not happen overnight. 

I can now say with perfect and complete confidence that truly, "power IS perfected in weakness." 

Just remember that definition of grace:  The power to do G-d's will!  And remember this:

2 Peter 1:3 - ...seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

Shalom