Strong in the Lord

( Or What It Is to Be Strong in the Lord )

by Toni Hobbie

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” – Eph. 6:10

What do we mean when we say, “Be strong in the Lord”? Better yet, what did God mean when He exhorted us through Paul (Eph. 6:10) to do just that? It sounds pleasant enough and we have vague ideas about what it means alluding to strength of character or resolve, but what does it really, concretely mean? And what does it look like in practice? 

Well, first let’s think about what we mean by being strong. When I first thought of writing this and turned my mind to the idea of strength, my initial thought was of a bodybuilder lifting heavy weights. Of course that was ridiculous and I quickly dismissed it as I continued on my search for a mental picture of strength. After all, God’s not telling us to lift heavy metals with His power. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that actually, the bodybuilder was not so far off. 

I. Weights and Whatnot (or The Burdens of Being)

Now before you freak out, God is not calling us to lift giant disks of metal, hallelujah. If you ever saw me, you’d know: This. Girl. Does. Not. Lift. But the lifting of heavy things is an excellent mental picture, for what we are called to do is to indeed bear things that are heavy, difficult, and offer much resistance.

The world, after all, is not only our home; it is at enmity with us. It hated our Lord, Who was sinless, it will certainly hate us, His pale, bumbling, stumbling imitators (Jn. 15:18). Even worse than that, the god of this world has turned his not inconsiderable powers to breaking us under the weight that we might prove ourselves fallen, irredeemable and he can rub our failures in his Enemy’s face (I Ptr. 5:8, Rev. 12:10).

And these two enemies, the world itself and its god, are just waiting, hoping, praying (I presume, though to what power, I have no clue) that we stumble, we fall. Our failures, after all, make it seem that our God is mocked. As if His goodness, mercy, and grace are not enough and there is no benefit to being one of His children.

As if that were not enough, there is what I call the ‘burden of being’, which is to say, the heaviness that comes of existing in a fallen world. Sometimes, the burden is simply staving off the lusts of our own flesh (Jas. 1:14), usually in the form of natural inclinations that can be used for either good or evil, pulling at us to seek our own satisfaction. Sometimes, the burden can be circumstantial, a loved one sick or dying, a financial or legal hardship with no help in sight, a disease eating away at your mind or flesh.

There are indeed many weights in this world, big, ugly, heavy cylinders of darkness tossed upon each and every one of us, no two exactly alike. And they are all there. Sometimes they drop on us. Sometimes we can feel God specifically telling us to pick one up. Even when it was over there, minding its own business and being awful, God says, “Go, take on that weight.” Yay.

Standing under these weights requires strength. A lot of strength. And here’s the kicker: we aren’t called just to stand. Standing alone is a last resort. We, God’s children, are called to follow Him and walk the narrow path, bearing the weights and His light as His ambassadors, calling all we meet along the way to the path of life. A daunting task when you think about it. Impossible really. And God knows this. Not only is that something He knows, it’s part of the plan.

II. The Art of Lifting (or The Buddy System)

Anyone who bench-presses (in which the lifter lies on their back, holds the bar chocked full of weights on either side at chest height, and pushes the bar up and down) knows that you never lift alone. Always have a spotter, one who will stand nearby, oftimes directly over the lifter, ready to hoist the bar off of the lifter should the lifter’s strength fail at any moment. Lifting correctly is a team effort.

We weren’t made to be monoliths, great, giant Atlases standing there holding the world on our individual shoulders with sheer grit and gusto. God didn’t make us for that. He doesn’t need us for that. He could, if He desired, snap all of our troubles away. Life could be a literal cakewalk if He so desired, not only being pain and discomfort free, but also the streets of gold being replaced with streets of triple fudge cake.

But God did not make the streets of fudge cake, nor did He make life easy, breezy, and beautiful. That was never His point or purpose. God didn’t call us to be independent islands, but to share in the great mystery of love with Him. As we bear our burdens, He bears our burdens (Ps. 68:19). It’s not that He never puts more on us than we can bear. He certainly does. But, we aren’t meant to lift alone. 

We are told to be strong in the Lord and the power of His might, not be strong in ourselves and the power of our own might. And thank God for that. Because there will be a point, maybe two, maybe nine thousand, seven hundred, and forty-seven wherein you will find the end of yourself. Where no matter your resolve, no matter your will and strength of character, your resources, your cleverness, your good nature, you will simply find yourself at a loss. Your strength may fail you or the burden may have been too much even with all of your resources and will combined. In those moments it will be evident on whose strength you’ve been relying.

Now, this is not to say that we kick up our feet and do nothing because we’ve got the ultimate spotter (Gal. 6:8, Lk. 14:26-33). This is to say that we can have confidence that, even when the weight feels like the literal world, we can do this. Not because we’re so strong, but because He is.

And so, when you feel the heavy weight on you from just life being extra lifey OR God calls you to take on more, ‘Go talk to that person’, ‘Get involved in that cause’, ‘Write that article for your mum’, it doesn’t matter if you think you can do it. You probably can’t. Not by yourself. And He didn’t ask you to nor does He want you to. His strength and power are more than sufficient than any task (II Cor. 12:9). 

So, do you lift, bro? We all do. We all have trials and tribulations and burdens galore. The question is how. When you’re there with your arms outstretched, the bar of crushing weights above you, are you relying on your own muscles or the strength of your partner? The weights can feel light or you can feel like picking this up was a terrible mistake, but when you feel that twinge in your right arm and see the weights start to teeter out of your control, you will suddenly know whose power truly keeps the crushing force at bay. When you lift, bro, never lift alone.

III. How to Lift Like a Bro (or Wait ‘til the End)

I don’t like sad movies. If a movie is sad, I’ll cheerfully skip it and watch a cartoon. Really. I do this. As an adult and everything. It’s worse if the movie’s pleasant and fun and then you’re hit with tragedy in the end. The bait and switch. It’s the worst. When my husband asks if I want to watch a movie that’s based on a true story, I’ll quickly look up the actual events to see how the story ends. I. Do. Not. Do. Sad. Movies.

And so, there’ve been times when a movie has been recommended to me or I’ve recommended a movie and we can feel the movie tugging in a very tragedious direction. The recommender, knowing I hate sad endings, will often give a pacifying gesture. ‘Just wait ‘til the end,’ they say.

When it comes to being strong in the Lord, the imagery of weights and spotters and game mechanics are well and good, but what’s it mean when you’re really in the fire to rely on Him? How does one do this? What does it actually mean to rely on Him?

When you’re faced with impossible questions, when your future is uncertain, when it looks like you’ve squandered opportunities, when everything you’ve built is crashing down around you, how do you stand strong in the Lord? You can’t do it, you know you can’t do it, you scream Jesus take the wheel and…now what?

I think that at moments like that, like when in that theater watching that movie and everything seems to be leading to an utter tragedy, that I think God says to us, with a smile and a hand squeeze, ‘Wait ‘til the end.’

More than that, He’s actually told us the end. Time and again, He’s told us. Before we were born, He anticipated that we’d be freaking out in the theaters and told us in His Word that all things work together for good (Rm. 8:28), that before the universe was founded He knew us and called us (Jer. 1:5, Eph. 1:11, Rev. 13:8). We even know the end of the universe as it were. The things that will happen and what will be the ultimate ending: life eternal, streets of gold, suffering and shame banished, endless joy, an overflowing plethora of awesomeness (Rev. 21-22).

We know the ending. We can be confident. Sounds easy. It’s not. That’s why we need strength.

After all, when we’re in trouble, when it’s all going very badly, when we’re hurt and sad and scared, it’s hard to focus on anything but the trouble we have. We’ve forgotten what we know and we’re just feeling our fears and frustrations. We just want relief, for the trouble to go away. We want all the problems solved and the music to get happy again like a proper rom-com should. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the storm stays, sometimes it takes you with it. Sometimes one might find oneself under the clouds for the rest of their earthly existence.

And still, we’re called to stand strong, to count it all joy, to be confident (Eph. 6:10-19, Jas. 1:2-4, Phil. 4:11-13). We’re not to deny our condition, but we’re to retain all the upright stance of a person standing in the sun with a mild midwesternly breeze. Not because the present is great. Sometimes there is literally nothing good enough in our present lives to alleviate even a fraction of our suffering. No, our confidence is not in the present, but in the future. Our faith is not in whether or not we overcome or are overcome in our material circumstances. We already know the truth of life: nobody gets out alive. 

And while our confidence is in the future, and honestly that could be enough, but God, in His infinite mercy doesn’t just leave us with a promise and a ‘trust me bro’ and then turn His attention away. No, He is here, now, with us through all weather. In any and all circumstances, the one and true God, creator of the universe and all that is therein from time to thoughts to centipedes, resides in us in His Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:16, Matt. 28:20, Heb. 13:5). And He grants us His peace, His calm, His relentless love and joy, and holds us upright. Our bodies may shatter, but He holds together the soul of His creatures. Peace beyond our comprehension, if we ask it, is ours and it will baffle the nations (Phil. 4:6-9).

But our peace should not baffle believers. For even when the movie seems intolerably sad and awful, even when it seems to make absolutely no sense, even when we are sad and hurt and confused, we have this edge: We know the Author. And while the particulars of each person’s individual vignette may not be laid out for us, we know the grand, overarching story and how all tales will tie up neatly into a tale so epic it literally sends us to heaven.

Life is hard. It is heavy. And when you least expect it, your strength will fail and suddenly those weights are falling directly at your surprised face. But through it all, we can be still and know that He is God and therein is our strength.

Yes, the story gets dark and scary, but He sits with us and tells us, with a smile and squeeze of the hand: It all makes sense. Trust me. Just wait ‘til the end.