From where do we draw our strength? What do we men boast in? All too often we can get caught up in extolling our accomplishments; but boasting is self-serving and fleeting. Sooner or later we end up falling short.
An all too common phrase that’s being paraded about these days: I got this.
Really? What exactly is that? or this? Sure, it’s a shortened expression for the following:
I got this; I can handle this; I got it under control
But what do we really have within our control? Can we realistically handle all that is being thrown at us every day? The simple and truthful answer, of course, is that we can’t. We are finite, limited human beings, replete with weaknesses, short-coming. We struggle with that dreaded D word; no, not divorce. Defeat. Strangely, for some of us, those inhibitions don’t have much impact. We keep right on plodding along, fooling ourselves thinking it’ll all turn out Ok.
John Eldredge, writer and apologetic, didn’t mince words and called guys out, labeling them as posers in his book, Wild at Heart. He understood that guys pretend, even talk themselves into believing they have things under control, when in fact they’re about to fail. Sure, they may be nice guys, family guys, church-going guys, but in the end are labelled as posers or pretenders. The last thing they want is to be exposed as a failure, so they create a false sense of well-being and then wrap it up nicely with ‘I got this’. So, why do guys pretend? It’s usually to hide some failure or inadequacy, or worse, by trying to impress men around them.
It’s easy to fall into that trap. I know. I’ve been down that road a time or two, desperately wishing I wasn’t face to face with that looming predicament. We, men, like to be in control, not having to rely on circumstances or events to dictate our actions. We plan, coerce, even finagle our way to make things work, all in an effort to disguise our short-comings.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. After all, we have an amazing God, One who encourages us to bring our failures and short-comings to Him. Scripture tells us that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. So, all we have to do then is to accept that statement at face value and act on it. Simple – no beating around the bush.
His strength is more than sufficient to overcome, first, our inhibitions, and then our reluctance to give up our own futile attempts. By acknowledging that His Ways are higher than our ways, we can move forward with confidence.
The Apostle Paul wraps up his thoughts with the phrase, “for when I am weak, then I am strong.” Without adding to this simple yet profound thought, I’ll step out and encourage us all to follow suit and not procrastinate.
God’s got ‘this’ and everything else. So, don’t worry, be happy. Oops, that’s another one of those idioms that can easily throw us for a loop.