Mighty In Spirit

Shadows are always there. The shadow of pain is like your shadow. Sometimes it is small and hard to find and then at other times it is a giant as tall as a tree. It is a constant companion that accompanies you. If you go fast it is just as fast. If you go slow it is slow. When you stop it stops. It matches you. When you are in the deepest valley your shadow is there. When at the heights of the highest mountain it is there also. I never thought that the pain would shadow you. I would expect the pain would be there when I am low and downcast. I would expect it on birthdays, holidays, and death days. But not on the good days. The happy days. The fun days. The shadow is always there. I remember when I first realized my shadow was always there. It was a revelation really. It was more than two years after James. I was teaching. This would almost seem insignificant except for the profound revelation that was revealed in this small event in time. The soccer team was goi...

When evangelist Vance Havner was in his mid-thirties, he developed a troubling nervous disorder. Previously he had been critical of people who were experiencing this condition. He said, "For two years I suffered from nervous exhaustion, and I learned not to laugh at nervous people." How easy it is to make light of the difficulties others face until we experience a similar problem. In God's school, we learn to sympathize with a variety of frailties we thought shouldn't affect Christians or should be easily overcome. We learn God doesn't deliver us quickly and easily from such conditions. Apostle Paul was a person of great faith and strength, but his "thorn in the flesh"remained with him in spite of his pleas for God to remove it. Instead of resenting this "thorn" he learned to welcome the resulting weakness that led him to find strength in Christ. This same apostle, perhaps because of his affliction, had earlier urged Christians to "comfort...