Daily Power #198

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. (Ps. 27:14)

My wife is not the only person I’ve tried to impress at the gym. For years, I’ve worked out with my buddy I call Paco. (It’s a rule that a good friend has to have a nickname or he’s not a good friend.)

At the end of our workout, sometimes we will do a “burn out,” a set when we do light weights to the point of exhaustion. So one day we decided to close out the session by bench-pressing an embarrassingly light weight. I went first and started out with ease. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . sixteen . . . seventeen . . . still relatively easy, no sweat.

After about twenty-five reps, I hit the wall. Suddenly it felt like I was trying to bench press four hundred pounds instead of forty. Paco, doing his job, cheered me on, “Come on, Groesch! Don’t quit! Get ten more! You can do it! It’s all you, man!”

Then he started counting off the final ten, spotting me carefully. “One . . . you got this. Two . . . Don’t quit. Three . . . keep going.” And that’s when I gave in and let go of the bar. And shockingly it kept moving. Paco kept lifting the bar up and down for me, not even noticing I’d stopped lifting. My spotter was doing all the work! When I reached the end of my strength, he took over.

God is way better than my workout partner. When we are weak and at our end, he sustains us. His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Power Lift

Lord, sometimes I feel like I can’t keep going and don’t know how I’ll make it through my day. Thank you for “spotting” me at those times and filling me with your power.