Overcoming

Richard Hext was born into an impoverished family with crippled hands and feet. After four years and 10 surgeries, he was eventually able to stand upright but unfortunately was never able to use his hands. However, a nurse had taught him to use his mouth to write and from this he developed a love for art as well.

After attending an academy for seven years, he was able to fulfill his dream of becoming a painter. Such was his skill and love for his work that he gained a notable place in the world of English art, with some of his paintings gracing the halls of Buckingham Palace.

Moses became a great leader, despite what appears to have been a stuttering speech pattern.

Rahab became a saint and an ancestor of Christ Jesus, even though she was formerly a prostitute in a pagan nation.

Peter was an impulsive man who, despite his fervent and admirable moments of faith, often failed in the long run to the point that he denied even knowing Christ three consecutive times when identified at His trial. Up to and during this time, he was anything but the rock that his name meant. Yet when he was forgiven by Jesus, he did become that very thing for the rest of his life in the early days of the church, to the point that he died unashamedly and at his own request for Our Lord.

And one might think that a king convicted of lying, adultery and murder would likely give up hope of ever again being a respected servant of God. Yet even as he was being hunted down by his own son, he fully repented of all that he had done, and as a result we are still blessed with many of his writings in the Psalms.

In fact the Bible is replete with people who were all too human in their failings, yet God’s grace was such that even a man like Paul, who ruthlessly persecuted Christians and carried warrants for their deaths, was converted and used by God to write a good portion of the New Testament.

No moral, physical or intellectual impediments are unconquerable. If anything, it is often those very things that drive people to greater heights than they might otherwise never have attempted or thought possible. Sometimes, travails are even purposeful and needed for reasons that our finite minds cannot see, as was the case with the aforementioned Paul, whom God allowed to be afflicted. When God told him, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness,” Paul’s response is a lesson for us all in our own particular hardships: “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”