“On my own …”

“I can do this on my own …”

He’s been performing the exact same feat for almost 20 years.

He can do it one more time.

“On my own,” he says quietly.

He needs real effort and amazing strength…

He could get hurt.

The home owner… a lawyer… makes him sign a release….

Tells him he is foolish to do the job on his own…

Tells him there are tools he could use.

But he is determined to do it on his own.

He’s not quite five feet seven inches tall.

But people still call him a big man.

The cliché “barrel chested” doesn’t describe him.

Muscles bulge on his chest and his arms and his back.

He works out every day to get that physique…

The physique that lets him perform his amazing feat.

His strength is part of his identity…

Part of who he is.

Someday he won’t be able to continue.

On that day part of his identity will disappear…

But those are thoughts for the future.

Today he gets down on his hands and knees and crawls under the grand piano.

As his team removes the legs, he rises up…

For a short time, he carries the entire weight of the piano on his back…

Proud of his strength…

Proud of his reputation…

Proud of what others say about him.

As his team lifts the piano, he thinks, “I did it.”

I did it on my own.

People cheer.

He smiles.

Yet in his heart…

And in his back where he feels a painful twinge…

He knows these displays of strength will end.

His body will fail …

He will live in weakness…

As do we all…

Ignoring what God says about the real source of strength…

“…My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  2 Corinthians 12:8

Forgetting the lesson Paul taught about living with weakness…

…I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Corinthians 12:9-10