Fragile Faith - 2 Corinthians 4:7

"We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves." We've all heard the amusing story about the man who falls over a cliff and grabs a branch on the face of the cliff to break his fall. He's hanging from the branch and calls up toward heaven, "If anybody is up there, please help me!" Suddenly a voice booms down from heaven, "LET GO OF THE BRANCH!" The man hanging from the branch thinks about it for a minute and then calls out, "Is there anybody else up there?" While this fable demonstrates a profound principle about faith, this principle often gets lost in the humor of the man's response (it's not so unlike how many of us would respond to the situation). Lately, I'm learning that faith is more about letting go than holding on, more about being broken than getting it together, more about giving up than having our way. Faith is more about what I don't understand about God than what I do understand! The Apostle Paul says it's like we are storing the great treasure of God's redemptive power in fragile clay jars. Thus, we must get our own selves out of the way--we must let go of our own will and yield to God's will--for the power of God to be deployed in our lives. Does having faith mean, then, that we just sit around and do nothing because God will handle everything? Well, yes, except there is something for us to do. Most of us have to work full-time at the "letting go" part of the equation because we want to plan and organize and control every aspect of our lives. We don't plan for bad things to happen and when trouble or tragedy strikes, then we are at a loss to explain how God could let this happen. Paul proposes that is through our vulnerability--our fragile faith--that Christ is manifested in our lives: "We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair...We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies" (vs. 8-10). The old maxim is right: Let Go and Let God!