God’s Strength

Daniel 10:15-19 While he was saying this to me, I bowed with my face toward the ground and was speechless. 16 Then one who looked like a man touched my lips, and I opened my mouth and began to speak. I said to the one standing before me, “I am overcome with anguish because of the vision, my lord, and I am helpless. 17 How can I, your servant, talk with you, my lord? My strength is gone and I can hardly breathe.” 18 Again the one who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength. 19 “Do not be afraid, O man highly esteemed,” he said. “Peace! Be strong now; be strong.” When he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, “Speak, my lord, since you have given me strength.”
 
ARE you sometimes, even often, overcome with the tasks God gives to you? When we seriously consider our Lord’s commands to minister to a broken world, our weary response may be, “I can’t do this, Lord.”
    That’s Daniel’s confession, “I am overcome with anguish because of the vision, my lord, and I am helpless.”  Yet, in this encounter we learn how God cares for his own. See how the angel touches the weakened prophet. The angel then encourages, “Do not be afraid.” And the angel affirms Daniel, “O man, highly esteemed. Peace! Be strong now; be strong.”  God’s messenger strengthens and renews God’s weary servant with a tender touch.
    We also know that Jesus, the Son in the flesh, needed help. In the Wilderness temptation: Mark 1:13 and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. In Gethsemane: Luke 22:42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Then in this dark hour the Father cared for his son: Luke 22:43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.
    You might say, “I’m not Daniel, and I’m not Jesus. They’re work was much larger than what I can do.” Jesus, though, wouldn’t agree with you. John 14:12 “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father.” As Daniel did, you are to declare God’s message to the world. As Jesus did, you are to submit to the Father’s will. When you are devoted to the Father’s purpose, his Spirit will empower you; his angels will attend to you.
 
Acts 12:8 Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. 9 Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10 They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.