Saturday evening, 8:30 p.m. I was exhausted from an unusually hard week. My body ached for sleep, but going to bed wasn’t an option. I was without a lesson plan for my Sunday school class the following morning. I love to teach and believe that anyone who shows up to learn God’s Word deserves a well-prepared instructor. Where would I find the strength to put a lesson together?

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Frustrated, I prayed. “Lord, you know my predicament, and you know I lack energy to finish the lesson. You know I have given my family top priority during a difficult stretch this week. I have not wasted time. You tell me that ‘your grace is sufficient for me, for your power is made perfect in my weakness.’ (2 Cor 12:9) Everyone who comes to class deserves to hear a good lesson. Please give me your thoughts, and I’ll take dictation. Lord, I hope you will help me get this done by no later than 10pm. I am so fried.”

I was preparing a lesson on Exodus 13 when I felt Him redirecting my attention to key verbs describing the ways God wanted to be loved by the Israelites: honor, consecrate, commemorate, observe, give, and redeem, verbs associated with dedicating the firstborn of every womb. God was defining how He wanted to be celebrated and remembered in honorable ways. Then “out of nowhere,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s treasured poem, How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways, popped into my head. God was showing up! He gave me a fun opening to engage the class, and the lesson came together now that I had my compass. The Lord not only gave me the lesson plan, but He supplied me with the physical and emotional energy to finish the lesson. I knew the lesson contained the message He wanted me to communicate. I felt His strength in my weakness.

It wasn’t a surprise that He answered my prayer. I am blessed to have a Prayer Ministry team who meets with me weekly to pray over my teaching ministries. We pray in faith that the Lord will lead me to His topic of choice and that I will stay out of His way as I become a messenger for the Holy Spirit. We ask Him weekly that I won’t build lessons in my own strength or knowledge. Jesus says in John 15:5, “I am the vine and you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing.” Why would I want to build a lesson apart from Him?! He already has the lesson plan, and I need to be quiet enough to hear Him speak.

I went to bed at 10 p.m. feeling satisfied that the Lord had spoken and made His power perfect in my weakness. I had no problem falling asleep! The class was absorbed by the lesson, still talking about it the following week. They loved connecting God’s love language with Browning’s poem. All I could say to them was, “It wasn’t me who thought of it. I can only give glory to God. If you only knew how my week had gone, you would be in awe of Him too.”

As I reflect on this experience, I am reminded that when we are at the end of ourselves, we are exactly where God wants us to be. When we recognize that we are completely dependent on Him for our needs, He has room to perfect His power in our weakness. When we think we can do things ourselves because of our training and abilities, we become vulnerable to pride. I am thankful for His reminder that He wants us to seek Him with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength in all matters – whether we think we need God or not!

Our best results are God’s results shining through our weaknesses. I want to encourage you to own your weaknesses and invite Him to display His power in them more often.

Blessings,

Lee Ann