Humble Strength
The twelfth saying of the Living Christ:
Strength is not self-denial. You are the children of God created in the image of God. You should not reject the leading of God, but not every desire arises from God. Watch the movements within you. Does a desire cause you to shrink and narrow, or does it draw you into the grasping shadows of Babylon?
Yielding to the life of the Spirit is to yield to love, not to submit to power, vainglory, fear, and control of the world that has strayed. Submission to these cycles of harm erodes strength, even though it can build a life that feels like it protects the self from a dangerous world.
Whoever intends to preserve their self will ruin it. Whoever ruins their self for me and for the gospel will preserve it.1 Godliness is to keep a heart so open the straying world calls it broken. To live the gospel is to refuse the yokes of those who build thrones upon the necks of the poor.
Anyone who cherishes their life is in the process of ruining it, but anyone who rejects their life as defined by this straying world will guard it into eternal life.2 For what is the life everlasting? It is to know the One who is, and the One sent to heal the brokenness.3 God can only be known in deep relationships with ourselves and others. If you erase the self, you erase the mirror in which God’s face is seen. To deny your existence is not holiness; it is a silence that bears no fruit.
Neither these relationships, nor the yielding to God, can bow to the silence of domination; for where there is no freedom, there is no truth.
If you pretend to listen for the crowd to be seen but have no ears to hear, the Living Word is lost. Relationships wither and bear sour fruit. The rulers of this age wear the mask of a listener while its heart remains hardened. It mimics the lowliness of a servant while its hand still holds the lash. Strength that cannot yield is brittle, and will break.
Humble strength listens before it acts. It yields to correction and hears the voice of the critic without reaching for a shield. It holds the line, but it is not rigid. Strength honors the wisdom of others and the nature of the world, entering into dialogue to find truth. Learning to listen does not erode authority; it builds it. This is the power that trusts truth more than ego.
Restore your humble strength through a heart that receives but does not abandon its post. It yields to the Truth, not to the loud command. It drinks in wisdom without spilling the cup of its own calling.
Humble strength restores the soul by healing its relationship to humility. It heals the world because strength that cannot listen inevitably harms those it claims to protect. Learning to listen refines strength, it does not weaken it.
Mark 8:35
John 12:25
John 17:3