(For an introduction to these thoughts, please view my blog from April 30th)

 Woe to those who crave fame: Do we possess the strength to be nothing?

Woe to us when...

...we daydream of greatness and call it being visionary.

...we long to be publicly affirmed in the superlative and call it God-confidence.

...we boast of opportunities and call it faith.

May we speak honestly about the spiritualization of ambition in the church?

Over fifteen years ago, I was slowly soaking in Christ's passion station by station in a desert prayer garden. Misunderstood, misrepresented, betrayed, beaten, rejected, mocked, ultimately murdered...in each moment of pain Jesus could have stopped the suffering with one word: "enough." But instead, Jesus assumed a posture of holy weakness.

As the days passed, it occurred to me that Jesus' true strength wasn't revealed in his ability to walk on water and calm storms. Christ's true strength wasn't revealed in his ability to deliver the demonized and minister to the multitudes. His true strength was revealed in his ability to empty himself, to become nothing, to die.

I also realized in that prayer garden that I possessed sufficient strength to exhaust myself studying and teaching and mentoring the multitudes but I did not possess sufficient strength to be nothing.

This grace to be nothing, this ability to appear to be less in order to be able to do more, this is a Jesus-style strength that enables a generation to carry God's power with purity, that equips a soul to be undeterred by rejection and uncontaminated by praise.

We must seek it. More than we can imagine rests upon it.

(to be continued)