How to Love with All Your Strength.
- Apr 23, 2018
- 5 min read
There is so much joy and peace in knowing where your strength lies. For so many of us, that “knowing” is a lifelong journey exploring, trying, tasting, digging and discovering who we really are as exterior beings. What are my abilities, capacities, and skills? What are my desires, capabilities, and gifts? How am I seen? What do I bring to the table? Where do I fit in?
I’ve asked myself these questions time and time again. All deep, introspective, reflective, self-check in questions that call up the desires and hopes in our lives. Not long ago I asked a ten year old, “What are your strengths?” Letting out a big “‘Ugh! I don’t know” as his eyes squeezed shut and his head sunk into his hands, I couldn’t help but think, “Ya, you and me both.”
Really though, in responding to these types of questions, we need to be realistic and honest with ourselves, but also kind. Knowing we are good at some things, and learning to see those good things as strengths in our lives takes time. Developing strength takes time. Maturing in strength takes time. Also, we associate ‘strength’ to many different aspects of life – physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, etc.
Have you seen wingsuiting? No, I’m not changing the topic, and yes, it’s that sport where you jump head
first off a mountain or tall building with such palpable faith that when you open your arms and legs, the suit adds surface area to the person enabling a significant increase in lift. In other words, you fly. If you have seen wingsuiting, then you probably have seen base-jumping, ski gliding, free flying, and the like of ‘extreme’ sports. My hands start to sweat just thinking about it, but it is truly breathtaking to watch.
Every wingsuit flyer/base-jumper/glider has obvious potential to be unsuccessful, but when asked about this fact they all say, it is worth it. I was watching TEDTalks and ran across Ueli Gegenschatz and his amazing explanation of wingsuit flying. As he was recounting his immense jumps, he made this comment, “it’s the ultimate feeling of being”.
Preparation and practice on every level needs to be achieved in order to be successful in a jump. There is every opportunity for something to go wrong, but facing the potentials in a tangible way, acknowledging the risks, and struggling through the minuscule details makes the possibilities for achievement real.
An extreme sportsman’s strength has to be holistic and not solely depend upon physical or mental capacities. The relief on every jumper and flyer’s face upon a successful landing tells the story that putting your life at intentional risk is overcome by knowing where your strength is and how much faith you put into it.
In the verse, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” (Luke 10:27 NIV), the Hebrew for “strength” is meod or ‘vehemently aright anything misaligned’. In Greek, it is ischus or ‘forcefulness, ability, and might’; the power one has to communicate what one believes. These two bases of the word strength increase my understanding of what Jesus was saying. Muscles and bones alone don’t quite fulfill this command.
Strength is the expression of the heart, soul, and mind – our capacity to develop within and overflow outwardly. This is the core of relationship and the exact opposite of religion. Relationship speaks to expressing outwardly what one has already purposed inwardly, whereas religion relies on outward action and internalizing the outcome.
One major theme I believe keeps us from fulfilling or at least, realizing what loving God out of all our strength looks like is this: strength weakens when our identity is grounded in what we can do versus who we are.
I cannot compare anything I’ve done to extreme sports, but in every person, there is that place where you get to face the reality of where your strength lies and who you truly are. For roughly seven years, I was the worship leader and coordinator at a church I was raised in. Not until I moved to the city to attend university did I realize how much of my identity in Christ was wrapped up in my human strengths of giving and serving. It took about a year to rebuild my own understanding of who I am, not what I am, in the Church.
In the uncertainty and confusion of my changing seasons, I learned to lean into the hope of knowing that in deconstruction, my foundation wouldn’t change. The root system to my strength was grounded in uncompromising faith. I know who I am in Christ. I know I am loved and I belong in His presence. In the moments, it is so hard, but in the waking, it makes sense.
I don’t think we get to truly test the deepest places of strength until we face the ultimate choice of life or death. When I read Voice of the Martyrs, I feel so simple. When I watch base-jumping, I feel so minor. But, the fact that I can get up every morning and do the tasks set before me from an honest, authentic place of being, calls me faithfully forward into the love I have for the Lord. I may never base-jump from an exhausted height – or let’s be real, from any height, but the same understanding and reference point for strength is the same.
After his TEDTalk, Gegenschatz advanced to another level of his ultimate love of flying, and in doing it, a gush of wind knocked him off course and he died soon after impact. I think people like Gegenschatz wake up knowing that things like death are inevitable, but life is optional. And functioning out of a faith-based place of strength is what makes the ultimately expresses our love – no matter how daring or vulnerable, no matter how extreme or common.
A Simple Way to Activate Your Strengths
1. Write a quick little list of some of your strengths - it may be as simple as picking up that paint brush again or baking cookies or taking a friend out for coffee.
2. Circle one and plan time in the next seven days to do it. Ask the Lord to inspire you to bless someone through it. Bake cookies for your neighbour or pick up that guitar and worship Him in a quiet place or invite a widow over for tea. Let Jesus encounter you in it and inspire you.
Friend, some days are a rife with battle and other days are just dandy, but I want my responses and actions to stem from a strength that is about loving the Lord. He has given you amazing talents and strengths - let's bless and honour His name while we do them.
With love, AKS xo
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