OCTOBER 10, 2025

 “Any person who only sticks with Christianity as long as things are going his or her way, is a stranger to the cross” 

― Timothy J. Keller

ISAIAH 43-44

I have made you, you are my servant;

Israel, I will not forget you.

22I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,

your sins like the morning mist.

Return to me,

for I have redeemed you.” (44:21-22) 

COLOSSIANS 2

9For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh^b was put off when you were circumcised by^c Christ, 12having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead

JOURNAL 

There are seasons when God’s strength feels like my own — when life flows, prayers are answered, and faith seems almost effortless. But then come the moments when that strength feels far away, when surrender feels like weakness, and I wonder why God’s way so often requires letting go rather than holding tight.

The truth is, this is how the Kingdom works. God gives us everything we need to thrive, to overcome, and to succeed but His way is through dependence, not dominance. We are trained by a world that prizes control, but Christ calls us to a different kind of power: one born from humility, rooted in surrender, and revealed in weakness.

Isaiah reminds us, “I have made you, you are my servant… I have swept away your offenses like a cloud.” (Isaiah 44:21–22) God’s promise is not that we’ll always feel strong, but that we’ll always belong. Redemption is not earned through effort; it’s received through returning through the quiet confession, “I can’t do this without You.”

Paul writes that in Christ “you have been brought to fullness” (Colossians 2:10), not by what you achieve, but by what you release. The old self, the self that believes survival depends on self-reliance — must be “cut away,” not by our hands but by His.

It’s a strange paradox: dependence feels like defeat, yet it is the doorway to real power. The cross looked like failure, but it was victory. Stephen’s death looked like loss, but it sparked Paul’s transformation. In God’s economy, surrender is not the end of strength...it’s the beginning of it.

When I forget this truth, when the noise of the world drowns out the whisper of grace, I try to remember that faith is not proven by success, but by endurance. “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! … But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:12–13)

God’s way out is rarely escap,  it’s empowerment. It’s His Spirit teaching me to keep walking, to keep trusting, to let go of the illusion of control and find peace in the power of dependence.

And that’s the mystery of it all: what feels like weakness in this world is strength in the next. What looks like surrender is victory. What feels like the end is often just resurrection beginning.

12So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13Nothing has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted^d beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,^e he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

1 CORINTHIANS 10:12-13