Daily Worship

Strength To Weakness

Fergus Buchanan May 12, 2014 0 0

Psalm 116: 8-10

For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling;
I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
I believed, even when I spoke:   
“I am greatly afflicted”.

There I was, gym three times a week, hoovering up the work, known for vitality and strength.
Now this.
A routine blood test and something is wrong.
More tests and now I have to live with this.
Diminished aspirations.
Diminished expectations.
Diminished future?  
It’s hard to take,
Strength to weakness.
Confidence to fear.
Purpose to uncertainty.

I’ve heard of the God who is present
In every circumstance.
I’ve heard of the God whose good purpose is working
In every circumstance.
I’ve heard of the God who loves me 
And no circumstance will ever separate me from that love.
Now I am called to believe in Him as never before.
Like the man who wrote the Psalm,
In fear of death,
Suffering distress and anguish,
Yet still in touch with his God,
And knowing His touch in the midst of his suffering.

Help me, like him, to believe
Even now 
When life has changed and will never be the same.  
Help me, like him, to come through the tears and the stumbling
To a new confidence in the God who is present
In achievement and failure, in joyful meeting and sad parting,
In celebration and mourning.  

 

Fergus Buchanan, St Paul's Parish Church, Milngavie