Where Strength and Surrender Meet
Like a sponge must be emptied to absorb more, our hearts must be yielded to receive the fullness of His strength.
📚 Devotional Credit:
Excerpt from His Victorious Indwelling by Nick Harrison
Original devotional writings by Arthur J. Pierson and H.G.C. Moule
📸 Photo Credit:
Photo by Unsplash
Today’s reading Nick Harrison reminds us that divine strength doesn’t just come alongside our weakness—it fills the very gap where our strength ends. In fact, God's power is perfected—not merely shown—in the context of our emptiness. That changes everything. Rather than resist our limitations, we can embrace them as the sacred space in which God’s grace operates most fully.
Arthur Pierson highlights that when Paul pleaded three times for the thorn to be removed, he received a better answer than relief—he received revelation. God’s grace wasn’t just adequate; it was the perfect context in which His strength could shine. Not despite weakness, but because of it. When we stop trying to prop up our old selves and instead abandon ourselves fully to the indwelling Christ, we become the very stage upon which His power is made complete.
H.G.C. Moule’s insight draws our gaze from our insufficiency to God’s sufficiency. If we let our needs direct us toward His supply, we’ll stop obsessing over how needy we are and start abiding in how faithful He is. Christ is between us and all our weakness. And through Him, we already have everything needed for today.
📓 Personalized Journal Entry – Voice of the Holy Spirit:
Beloved, I have never asked you to be strong for Me. I have called you to rest in Me. My power does not compete with your weakness—it completes it. My strength finds its fullness not in your striving but in your surrender. I did not merely promise to reveal My might in your infirmities. I have designed your weakness to be the vessel through which My strength is perfected.
When your hands are empty, Mine are free to act. When your plans unravel, My purpose weaves deeper still. Do not despise the thorns. They are not barriers to grace, but invitations into My sufficiency. You can do all things through Me because I am your life, not your assistant. I am your source, not your supplement.
Let go of the need to measure your adequacy. I am between you and your limitations. In every need, I am already your answer. Trust Me not just to carry you through weakness, but to be glorified in it.
Let My omnipotence find room in your yieldedness. For when you are most aware of your emptiness, you are closest to My fullness.
Scripture References: Philippians 4:13; 2 Corinthians 12:7–10; Romans 8:26–27; Isaiah 40:29–31; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:3–4; John 15:5; Psalm 73:26; Ephesians 3:16; 1 Peter 5:10; Romans 5:6
🧠 Real-Life Analogy:
Imagine trying to scoop water from a bowl using a sponge that’s already soaked. No matter how much you try to press it into more, it can’t absorb anything new until it’s wrung out. Only when it's emptied can it receive again.
In the same way, when we try to face life full of our own effort, we leave little room for the life of Christ to flow through us. But when we release control—when we admit, “I can’t”—we create space for Him to do what only He can.
Today, if I find myself staring at a task that feels beyond me—a conversation I don’t want to have, a burden I don’t want to carry—I will say, “Lord, I yield to You. You are already my adequacy for this. I trust You to think through me, speak through me, and love through me in this moment.” And I will rest, knowing the outcome depends not on me, but on the God who lives in me.
🙏 Prayer of Confidence:
Father, I thank You that in Christ, I have all the strength I will ever need. Your grace doesn’t just patch up my weakness—it perfects Your strength within it. You have already given me Christ as my Life, and He is sufficient for every moment I face today. I rest in You—not as one striving for power, but as one filled with it. I joyfully yield to Your working in and through me, confident that all things are already mine in Him.