Stronger Than My Strength

Today I'm featuring a wonderful article that is so timely for many these days. It comes from the National Women's Ministries department of the Assemblies of God. I hope you are ministered today from it!

Hugs,
LaDonna


Stronger Than My Strength

By Maricela Hernandez

Her eyes spoke more than her words. Everything was calm when, all of a sudden, the sophisticated hospital machinery sounded the alarm. In an instant, the room was filled with nurses and assistants who came to my mother’s aid. I couldn’t do anything to improve my mother’s condition. Though I couldn’t comprehend all that was happening, I knew death could be imminent. Cancer was taking over. But even though she was in pain, she was not upset nor questioning God—she was simply waiting on Him.

I looked at her with loving eyes, and believed she was healing. Of course, I was seeing her with the eyes of faith. I understood that though her external body was deteriorating daily, her spirit was preparing for her encounter with God. Then God showed me a more profound truth about divine healing: His “maximum healing” goes farther than the physical limits and into eternity. That is when God decides to heal us once and for all—not just a temporal healing, but an eternal one.

Dear friend in ministry, the enemy wants us to think that God has failed us when our prayers are not answered the way we want, especially when we are in need of physical healing. We feel that since we serve God in preaching and teaching His Word, we ought to be in perfect health. When we are sick, we think God is obliged to heal us the minute we ask Him to do so.

But God works in mysterious ways. Even the Apostle Paul had to learn to wait on the Lord and depend wholeheartedly on His grace, as evidenced in 2 Corinthians 12:8–10: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it [a thorn in the flesh] away from me. But he said to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (NIV).

In this difficult time, I was able to learn a prayer I had not previously conceived: “Lord, let my love for you be stronger than my strength.” I observed my mother losing her physical strength, but not her strength to love God. Even on her deathbed, she asked me to give her tithe and her missionary offering from her last disability check. Her financial faithfulness was a living testimony of her love for God.

I thank God for allowing me to be with my mother during her last days. I learned many profound spiritual lessons, but the one I cherish the most is the prayer she taught me as she prepared for her encounter with God: “When my strength wears out, when things don’t go right, Lord, let my love for you be stronger than my strength.”

MARICELA H. HERNANDEZ is a dynamic and inspirational speaker. She served as senior pastor of Templo Paraiso in Sullivan City, Texas (1995-2004). Alongside her husband, Rev. Rafael Hernandez Jr., they planted Family Christian Center in Penitas, Texas, which they presently pastor. Maricela is the founder of Women of Fire Ministries, a Bible school and mentoring internship program. She holds a BA in Secondary Education and is presently pursuing a Masters in Theology from Southwestern Assemblies of God University.


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