‘O Lord, You’ve been trying to teach me, but I didn’t get it. Weakness is actually a great blessing. Those who are weak are ever dependent, ever leaning on You. Like, Jacob. He asked for Your blessings and You touched Him, but not the touch of miraculous physical blessing. Your touch crippled him and it was in that incapacitation that he became blessed. I don’t think that’s what he expected but that’s what he got because You answered him in the way You knew his real need would be met. Wow!! True blessedness is the dependent life. Once You touched him, You dislocated him from his strength. From that time onwards, he could no longer stand without You.

Oh Lord, I hear You. I hear You. The blessing of being in You and being blessed by You is in the crippling of our strength. The man who knows he is disabled will need to lean on something or someone for help. Unfortunately, most men lean on something, but Lord, I choose to lean on You, the all-sufficient One. I am blessed when I am crippled. I am blessed when I am weak. I am blessed when I see my sinfulness and my need of cleansing. I am blessed when I struggle with the motions of sin and cry for sanctification. I am blessed when I don’t have any self-confidence but place all my confidence in God.

Oh! Now I see it. I smell the ugliness of self-righteousness, self-sustenance, self-justification, self-motivation, self-gratification, self-praise, self-elevation, self-support, self-promotion, self-satisfaction…and the list goes on. The real strength of man comes from the Man’s crippling. Lord, I get it now; I see it. I understand why You have not permitted me to escape from this position of yearning for more of Your righteousness. Now I understand why I am ever so conscious and aware of my sinfulness and weaknesses. Now I see why I cannot be like every other person, full of the usual human bravado. O God, keep me weak and crippled. I don’t ever want to outgrow my crippling. Jacob leaned on the Crutch of God all the days of his life. That was blessing to him. People may have seen him and misunderstood him. They would have been confused by his testimony when he said, ‘Hey! I encountered God, and He crippled me!’ ‘Why would God cripple you?’ they must have pondered. And he would have replied, ‘Oh! I asked Him for blessing, and He made me into a dependent man knowing only such a person can be blessed by God’.

Oh Lord, may I never graduate from this school. O Lord, may dependence ever be my portion. And when I seem to be getting comfortable and secure, God, please dislocate me again. Please, keep me dislocated at all times, always leaning on You. This is my final cry. And I ask it through Christ, who was dislocated and was later fully relocated. Amen.’