Whispers of His Power – JULY 20

Heb. 11.33-34:  Who through faith… out of weakness were made strong.

Long ago a toy was invented in Holland, which Prince Rupert brought to England.  These toys were bubbles of glass, and were called Rupert’s drops.  Molten glass was dropped into water, and took the form of a tadpole.  The body part could stand quite a hard knock, but the least tap broke the tail.  If even the tip of the tail were broken, the whole tadpole flew into fine dust of glass, ‘with explosive noise’.

Most of us know what it is to feel rather like those tadpoles.  ‘I can bear this and this and this,’ we say, ‘but I really can’t stand that!’  Touch our tails and – well, we may have learned not to ‘go off in explosive violence’, but even so there is something uncommonly like the shattering of the glass ball.

What we need is to be made powerful inwardly, so that we can resist at all points, even when our tail is touched.  And this is the very promise we have in Hebrews 11.34.

Nearly everyone has some special fear, something more dreaded than anything else.  The men and women of old were just the same as we are, and yet they did not give way, for Out of weakness they were made strong inwardly.  The God who did that for them can do the same for us.  We need not have tadpole tails.

oooOOOooo

These words are from ’Whispers of His Power’ a collection of writings that Amy Carmichael wrote for her ‘children’ and others associated with the Dohnavur Fellowship. and are Copyright © The Dohnavur Fellowship 1982

Unless otherwise stated, biblical quotations are from the Authorized King James Version of the Bible.

The following abbreviations are used to refer to other versions and sources:

BCP:               Book of Common Prayer, the Great Bible of Coverdale

Conybeare:       W. J. Conybeare, The Epistles of Paul (a translation)

Delitzsch:        F. Delitzsch, Notes on Job and the Psalms

Kay:                W. Kay, The Psalms (a translation)

LXX:              The Septuagint

Moffatt:           J. Moffatt, The New Testament: a new translation

Rotherham:      J. B. Rotherham, The Emphasized Bible Revised Version

RV:                 Revised Version

Way:              A. Way, The Letters of St Paul (a translation)

Westcott:         F. Westcott, Notes on the Gospel of St John

Weymouth:      R. F. Weymouth, The New Testament in Modern Speech

Young:            R. Young, A Literal Translation of the Bible

Verses of poetry without quotation marks were written by Amy Carmichael.