Our sufficiency is from God. (2
Corinthians 3:5)
We go through times of trial
and test under the hand of God, and it is so easy to get into that frame of mind
which says in effect, 'The Lord does not want us, He need not have us!' We let
everything go, we do not care about anything; we have gone down under our trials
and we are rendered useless. I do not believe the Lord ever comes to a person
like that to take them up. Elijah, dispirited, fled to the wilderness, and to a
cave in the mountains; but he had to get somewhere else before the Lord could do
anything with him. "What doest thou here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:9). The
Lord never comes to a man and recommissions him when he is in despair. "God
shall forgive thee all but thy despair" (F. W. H. Myers, "St. Paul")
– because despair is lost faith in God, and God can never do anything with one
who has lost faith....
A great deal is made of the
natural side of many of the Lord's servants, and usually with tragic results. A
lot is made of Paul. 'What a great man Paul was naturally, what intellect he
had, what training, what tremendous abilities!' That may all be true, but ask
Paul what value it was to him when he was right up against a spiritual
situation. He will cry, "Who is sufficient for these things?" "Our sufficiency
is from God" (2 Cor. 2:16; 3:5). Paul was taken through experiences where he,
like Moses, despaired of life. He said, "We... had the sentence of death within
ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the
dead" (2 Cor. 1:9).