When You Reach the End of You
What happens when you reach the end of your strength? Paul knew that place. In 2 Corinthians 1, he describes being under pressure “far beyond our ability to endure”—so overwhelmed that he despaired of life itself. Yet it was there, at the end of his own resources, that Paul discovered a deeper dependence on “God, who raises the dead.” Years later, poet Annie Johnson Flint would express the same truth beautifully: when our endurance is exhausted and our own resources are gone, God’s supply has...
What happens when you reach the end of your strength?
Paul knew that place. In 2 Corinthians 1, he describes being under pressure “far beyond our ability to endure”—so overwhelmed that he despaired of life itself. Yet it was there, at the end of his own resources, that Paul discovered a deeper dependence on “God, who raises the dead.”
Years later, poet Annie Johnson Flint would express the same truth beautifully: when our endurance is exhausted and our own resources are gone, God’s supply has not even begun to run dry.
In this episode of Scattered Moments, we consider the small but powerful words we and Him, the gift of people who walk with us through suffering, and the God who has delivered, who delivers still, and upon whom we can set our hope for tomorrow.
Sometimes reaching the end of yourself isn't the end at all.
It may be the place where you discover just how inexhaustible the grace of God really is.
Welcome to Scattered Moments. Imagine getting an email from your newly married son. He's moved his family halfway around the world and you haven't heard from him in a couple of weeks. And then one morning his name appears in your inbox. You open it immediately. Hi, Mom and Dad. We do not want you to be uninformed about the troubles we experienced here. We were under great pressure, far above our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Well, that'll get your attention. Those are essentially the words of Paul as he wrote to the Corinthians, and perhaps they weren't quite as shocked coming from Paul. Paul seemed to live perpetually somewhere between the revival and the riot. At this particular point in his ministry there was plenty going wrong, conflict in the churches, opposition from enemies, threats against his life. In Ephesus, a silversmith named Demetrius even managed to stir up an entire city against him. I've had some difficult weeks, but I've never had the Silversmith's Union organize a riot against me. Paul doesn't exactly tell us what trouble he's been talking about here, but maybe that's a good thing. Because whatever happened, he tells us what it felt like. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure. In other words, I don't think I can take another step. Maybe you've never been chased out of a town. Maybe nobody has issued a warrant for your arrest because you preached the gospel, but you may know the feeling. You get that phone call that tears your world apart. You get that diagnosis that rearranges everything in your life. The person you once called the love of your life is now, well, a trauma, a broken promise or a broken memory. It was one loss you never saw coming, and suddenly the financial, emotional, and relational reserves you thought you had simply aren't there anymore. It's all gone. You aren't tired, you're spent. Paul even goes further, we despaired of life itself. Honestly, I can appreciate that sentence. This is an apostle talking. This is Paul. And apparently there are moments when even strong believers can become so overwhelmed that tomorrow feels impossible. But there's a little word hidden throughout Paul's description that I don't want us to miss. We do not want you to be uninformed. We were under great pressure. We were despaired. We felt like we had received the sentence of death. Paul doesn't say I, he says we. Sometimes one of God's greatest gifts in suffering is we. Someone who sits beside you, someone who answers the phone, someone who prays when you don't have the words, someone who reminds you of what is true when your own mind has become an unreliable narrator. Sometimes God doesn't immediately change the tension. He gives you somebody to walk through it with you. But Paul gives an even greater word because after we, he gives us him. Paul says all of this happened so that they could stop relying on themselves and rely instead upon God who raises the dead. What a phrase. Paul doesn't merely say God will help. He reaches for the biggest thing he knows about God. He raises the dead. That's the God Paul is trusting when his own resources are gone. And then Paul does something else that I love. He looks backward. He has delivered us. Paul can point to yesterday and say, God was there. Then he looks at the present. He will deliver us again. God isn't finished. And finally, Paul looks toward the future he cannot see. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us. Past, present, future, Paul doesn't know what the future holds. He doesn't know whether another riot is waiting in the next city, another prison cell is around the corner, another hardship will arrive before he recovered from this one. But his confidence isn't based on knowing what comes next. It's based on knowing who will be there when it comes. That's Christian hope. Hope isn't pretending tomorrow won't hurt. Hope is remembering who carried you yesterday and trusting that he hasn't changed overnight. He is sustaining me now, and he will be there tomorrow. And notice Paul never says that God promised to keep him from trouble. Paul has already told us the opposite. He was crushed, he was overwhelmed, he was in despair of life itself. The promise wasn't that Paul would never reach the end of himself. In some strange way, reaching the end of himself was precisely where Paul discovered the sufficiency of God. And maybe that's where grace becomes most visible. Not when God adds a little strength to ours, but when ours has finally run out. And years after Paul wrote about being pressed beyond our ability to endure, Flint found remarkably similar words. And Paul said we were beyond our ability to endure, and Flint wrote, When we have exhausted our store of endurance, Paul said we despaired of life itself, and Flint wrote, when our strength has failed, ere the day is half done. Paul said that they had reached the place where they could no longer rely upon themselves, and Flint wrote, When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, and then comes the line that sounds almost like Paul's testimony said to poetry, Our Father's full giving is only begun. That's it. Paul reached the end of Paul. Annie Flint reached the end of Annie Flint. And perhaps you've reached the end of yourself a time or two. We spend so much of life accumulating resources, strength, experience, wisdom, money, plans, connections, and we begin to imagine that faith means asking God to help us stretch the resources a little farther. But sometimes God allows us to discover something on the other side of our own sufficiency. The end of our resources is not the end of His. Paul knew it, Annie knew it. And perhaps somebody listening today needs to know it. You may be beyond your ability to endure. You may have nothing left in reserve. But the God who delivered yesterday is still God today. And he will be there tomorrow. So don't put your hope in how much strength you have. Put your hope where Paul puts his on him. The God who raises the dead, the God who has delivered, the God who still delivers, and the God upon whom we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. And that's today's scattered moments. Until next time, take heart. Notice the scattered moments and share the grace.
