Strength applied in the wrong place, is Weakness
Saturday. That's the only day students with free time attend programs on campus. A church had invited him for a preaching slot. He's to speak for an hour.
Sweat falls from his skin. Spittle spurts as he speaks. Screams fill the space and the hour ticks to a stop.
He returns to his room and responds to the compliments of those who have heard him. He accompanies each nod with 'Bless God' clichés.
His belly suddenly aches for food. He grabs a bite at a cafe around. He is now heavy. A noisy yawn follows and his eyes dilates. They fill with fluids. He squeezes them with his thumb and index finger. It's time to sleep.
Three hours of siesta flies past. His phone had been ringing. He checks a queue of messages. They are compliments and further speaking engagement requests. He promises to spend no time answering every message but each pop on his phone only pins his attention more. People have been blessed by his sermons and want his presence even more. God's been good.
Facebook is another audience he has missed throughout the day. Now he is on the blue and white page and 28 notifications balloon into his face. It is hard to resist the urge to click on them. What a prosperous page!
His roommates begin a round of flattery on him. "Double Pee" they'll say. A lousy colleague yells the meaning: Popular Pastor! He attempts to silence them with timely anecdotes to which they scream "rhema" at the end of his pause. He hadn't read all day. He has oral exams in a few days and speaking engagements that dot most of the other days. He doesn't need the rancour of his bedmates but he's had it serious all day and he could use a little fun moment.
It's a few hours after his exams and it didn't go too well. But he's got faith... the very kind that has made him so influential in school. He hinges on the miraculous - a feat he has seen encore in the lives of people that sit under his ministration. He'll give a testimony of God's faithfulness - the rare type that He often says God specializes in.
The news hits him first--under his shiny, star-studded belt. His grades just took a plunge. He wanders round the perimeter of his room, sunk in wonder. It's his first blow of academic failure and this takes him back home - the kind of journey a dropout makes.
We know he was smart. How could he preach such stirring sermons, pray with such a devotion, even give with peerless passion and not be? He was a tough meat, bombastic in intellect!
He was strong. He knew it too. But strength applied in the wrong place is weakness.
Could it be possible that you are experiencing failure in a crucial area of your life because something else, even a worthy cause sucks up too much of your power?
Could it be possible that you are having less than you should because you didn't harness your strength?
The lightening bolt splashes 100 thousand volts per second across the night skies. That's enough to light a city! But it is useless to us because it is not harnessed to power our appliances - the little crucial things. So, the mighty event of electricity splitting through the sky is reduced to a spectacle for our mere gaze. What a waste! - because strength in the wrong place is weakness.
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