Right tools bring joy, but wrong tools fail. Dust china cabinets with feathers, not brooms. Pound nails with hammers, not screwdrivers. Wash dishes with sponges, not grinders. Eliminate flies with swatters, not shotguns. God’s kit includes every tool we need for life.

So, for example, we manipulate creation with strength, not wishing. Twist a lid, open a jar. Burn gasoline, fly a plane. Keep running, complete a race. Work hard, make money. Outmaneuver the competition, win a lover. If we change things by strength, can we change more things with more strength? Christ our Lord is strong, but so is our enemy, Satan. If the stronger devil beats us, does Christ beat him by even greater strength? Even God says, “Go in the strength of the Lord.”

But what is the strength of the Lord? More muscle? Greater force of personality? Psychic power? Greater endurance? God designed strength—as we understand it—for use exclusively within creation, not without. When we call it our ultimate tool, we shut heaven’s door and limit ourselves to a fight within the ropes of Satan’s smack-down ring. Fortunately, two different, less appealing, tools in the kit do open the door—weakness and waiting.

Surrender strength and watch weakness attract His authority. He speaks of things that are not as though they were and creates something out of nothing. He says neither might nor power prevail, only His Spirit. Then, wait for Him, no one else. He gives new strength, eagle-wing strength, just the tool we need for mortality’s journey.

So, now that you abandoned your chariots, chased off your horses, and stand exposed on the battlefield, how do you see Him prevailing against the advancing horde?

Psalm 20:7; Romans 4:17; Isaiah 40:27-31; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; Zechariah 4:6