The scriptures, especially the psalms are filled with prayers for strength. The Lord, and no other, is our strength and our shield. We may try to find strength in ourselves but we will always fail. Life is too hard to rely on our own frail strength to get through it. But when God is our strength, he equips our hands to fight all of life’s battles, big and small. Only with God can you be strong enough to prevail in life.
Life forces us to acknowledge just how weak we are on our own and turn to God and cry out to him in prayers for strength – it is then that he shows us just how much his strength is perfected in our weaknesses. Only then can we say something as crazy as, “My heart and flesh may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever”, and know that it is true (Psalm 73:26).
However, we must be careful to analyze our priorities when we ask for strength. When God allows troubles in our lives, he does it to make us grow in faith. Suffering produces endurance which produces character and hope in turn. Often, when we pray for strength it is to accomplish a task or to escape a situation – and that’s okay.
What we must realize though, is that God will often answer our prayer for strength by highlighting our weaknesses even more. He does this so that we are forced to realize the limits of our own strength and rely on his instead. This battle will be fought within us and only when we acknowledge that God alone is the source of our strength will we be able to receive the strength he freely offers and begin to come out of the situation we find ourselves in.
So when we say a prayer for strength, we can be confident that God will equip us with the strength that we need. It will be his strength though, that comes through for us, and that only when we realize how weak our own strength is. Then we can say with Paul, “For the sake of Christ, I am content with weaknesses…for when I am weak, then I am strong”.
