The Spirit of the Lord Rushed

Week Fourteen | Fifty-Two 4.9.21

As I am writing this, I am also confessing ~ I don’t have what it takes. Ever, really...but especially lately it seems. 

Some weeks just knock you down and drain the life right out of you.

It’s not that there aren’t any good things, bright spots, or blessings. Oh there are ~ like little boy nephews and ice cream topped with gummy sharks and racing through grocery store aisles ~ smiling deep, remembering my own little boy mama-days, kinda forever ago. 

But the tension of reality remains. Every day, we carry both the...

good and bad

light and dark

beautiful and brutal

healing and hurt

strong and weak

joy and grief

everything and nothing.

So how do we carry on well ~

holding on *and* letting go.

How do we even know the difference?

I don’t have the answer, but I believe a man named Samson knew the secret. On the outside, it appeared to be his long, untouched hair. And though it absolutely was a gift of strength from the Lord, Samson’s first badge of victory came when he tore a lion into pieces with his bare hands. Um yeah, that’s what I’d call the “tension of reality” and carrying on well! 

What especially strikes me somber in this story of a man and his might - as I wrestle through my own weak places, holding life’s tension with shaky hands - is this one line out of Judges. 

“Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him [Samson], and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces…” (14:6)

Because the Spirit of the Lord is everything, holding all things together. Especially when we have nothing to offer. 

It’s the great paradox and hope of the Gospel tension. And the greatest Story ever told to inspire and enable holding on and carrying on, even in the letting go.

We are living in hard and holy days. May the fresh wind of His mighty Spirit rush…

Because though life may knock you down, it doesn’t have to knock you out.

Greater is He that is in you ~